


In My Life

by fabricdragon



Series: Amnesia Shuffle [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Saint - Leslie Charteris
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Anthea (Sherlock), Brain Damage, Caretaking, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Friends, Guilt, Medical, Mycroft IS the British Government, Mycroft-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Drug Addiction, Physical Therapy, Recovery, The Saint references, Work Contains Fan(s) or Fandom(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2018-12-22 18:06:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 45,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11972772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricdragon/pseuds/fabricdragon
Summary: While in interrogation under Mycroft Holmes  Jim Moriarty suffers from an unauthorized assault and is put into a coma. While most people are  told he is dead he is taken off for private care and recovery by Mycroft Holmes.How much will he recover, and what will happen  if he does?While every effort is made to  be realistic, this is not "the real world" and certain liberties are taken with recovery from brain injury.This is a WIP and will update when i feel  up to it as it is emotionally taxing.





	1. Chapter 1

Mycroft went down to interrogation early. Perhaps if he was there when they brought Moriarty in and started the set-up he would be easier to read–perhaps not. Mycroft checked his watch: they were late in starting. He noted the delay with annoyance–but no alarm–at first: Moriarty often did things that caused delays.

He should have been alarmed.

Once Moriarty was in the infirmary–luckily, the infirmary here was more of a trauma hospital; given what they did here it had been needed before–Mycroft went over the cameras. The building was sealed of course, and a number of people were extremely annoyed, but policies were in place for a reason…

Ah. There. The cameras had been put on a loop… Mycroft pulled in every individual who had been in the building in the past two days and had access to the cell or recordings.

Mycroft made the announcement over the building speakers: “Simply put: our most important guest, the sole source of information on a potentially disastrous terrorist action, is in a coma. This could have been put down to misadventure or his own actions, except that the cameras were put on a loop. No one is leaving this building until we find the culprit. I will be in my office.”

Anthea calmly called and cancelled all of her appointments and told her people to do likewise. One of them asked why and she simply raised an eyebrow and explained, “No one leaves the building until we have an answer–no one: even Mister Holmes will only leave for critical meetings and then return. If you want to go home, than I suggest you assist in finding the culprits–I did tell you to keep changes of clothing at the office.”

The first few hours were calm enough but when no one was allowed out at shift change–and only critical people allowed in, and those after being warned they would not leave again–a handful of people displayed a bit of temper. Most of them settled when the armed guards took up stations.

Six hours after his announcement he began receiving “anonymous” tips–most of them nothing but ill-considered conjecture, of course; he followed up on the better ones.

Twelve hours after his announcement someone tried to sneak into the infirmary and he had them brought to interrogation. They had indeed planned to murder James Moriarty in order to end the lock down and cover up their own misdeeds. It did not take long to find out that while they were on Moriarty’s payroll as an information leak: they were not involved in the incident, merely an idiot. After consideration, he arranged for the idiot spy to die in an auto accident so that his family would not have to deal with the shame and his wife would receive insurance to assist in raising his children; Mycroft had always had a soft spot for children.

Fifteen hours after his announcement, while he was still dealing with the idiot spy and would-be assassin, his doctors informed him that Moriarty was stable; his heart had sustained minimal damage, but he had an unknown amount of brain damage; he was definitively in a coma with no way to predict when or if he would wake up; and that it appeared to have been caused by some combination of drugs, oxygen deprivation–probably water–and electric shocks.

Twenty-four hours after his announcement, the first re-supply delivery arrived. When the staff saw the extra cots, the food deliveries, and the delivery of basic clothing changes it became very quiet. Mycroft began receiving ridiculous pleas for people to be exempted and allowed to return home.

Twenty–eight hours after his first announcement, he made a second announcement: “I reiterate: no one is leaving this facility until we have an answer. At this point, we know that person or persons unknown deliberately took action against our guest while the cameras were put on a loop to prevent anyone from observing. We do not yet know why. These individuals are likely within the building and may yet attempt to murder any of us. If you wish to leave this building you will assist in finding the answers: if you cannot be of assistance then do your work quietly and stay out of the way.”

Thirty hours after his first announcement he had his first assassination attempt–it was pathetically incompetent. They were arrested and taken away and he told Anthea to make a note to improve training.

Forty hours–and one assassination attempt by someone far more competent–later he received an email from someone claiming to have information, but no idea how to approach him. He had them brought in by Anthea.

“I have no idea if it’s relevant, sir… really.” The very minor office aide–Stephan–was fidgeting in his office.

“Then get to the point.”

“There are three men who are always on smoke break when I run the document shredder overnight–early morning–I mean always. That night they weren’t. I have no idea if it’s important…”

“A change in routine is always important. Do you know who these three men are?”

“No, but their clothing… the only people I have seen with that clothing work in the interrogation wing.”

“Would you recognize them?”

“Maybe? I usually don’t pay them much attention, sir.”

 _How typical, and frustrating_. “Did anything about them stand out? Anything you can recall at all?”

The man frowned, trying to remember… “Lu might know who they are.”

“Lou?”

“Lucy. She’s been out with the flu since before this, but she might know who they were.”

Lucy turned out to be an intern who had in fact been home with the flu for almost a week. Mycroft considered calling her in, considered influenza and a closed building, then called up Lucy’s number and phoned.

“Hello?” Lucy answered–if that was in fact Lucy and not a zombie; it seemed questionable.

Stephan explained that there was a security issue and they needed to know who the three men were that were always on break when they ran the shredder; Mycroft listened carefully.

“Oh…” Lucy coughed, made disgusting honking noises, and sipped noisily from something. “I can’t answer that, it’s secured stuff.”

Mycroft nodded to Anthea–Anthea spoke up. “Miss Williams, this is a call directly from the office–”

“I’m sick, not stupid,” she snapped and then went silent except for snuffling noises. “I have the secure call-in line. Give me five minutes.”

Mycroft looked approving. “Once the young lady has been decontaminated, ensure she receives a bonus and consider her for permanent hire.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was closer to ten minutes, but Mycroft was inclined to be forgiving given the miseries of influenza.

“Those three?” Lucy Williams snuffled. “Oh... that’s Burke, Jones, and Bellis: Burke is a Berk, Jones is a go-alonger, and Bellis is a problem.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow at the phone, as did Anthea. “Can you elaborate? We are dealing with a security issue here.”

“What’s the problem?”

Mycroft looked thoughtful and decided to gamble. “Understand that this is above your pay grade, miss Williams.”

“Most things are.”

“We had a guest in the building and he was injured. The cameras were looped as well.”

“Moriarty?”

Mycroft sat back, “You shouldn’t even be aware of that name.”

“I’ve got big tits; people talk to them because they forget I have a brain.” Mycroft could hear her rearranging herself on the bed. “Bellis was interrogating him back at the beginning, according to Jones, and got pulled off for some reason. If someone was violent at the man it was probably Bellis–do yourself a favor, whoever you are, and don’t be alone with him.” She paused for several breaths. “None of them do cameras or security that well, but they might have a friend–or someone they pressured. Ask Jones, he’ll be the easiest to get talking, even if he doesn’t know much.”

“You have my thanks. You will also have a bonus if this information proves useful.” Mycroft nodded at Anthea and hung up.

Burke, Jones, and Bellis were brought in for questioning. They had in fact been the responsible parties, along with one of their friends who assisted with the cameras. Their computer and security savvy associate was handed off for more intensive questioning elsewhere while they peeled the details out of these three.

The drugs were not their doing, as it turned out: that was something they were unaware of, and had been previously authorized. It all appeared to have started with Bellis’ fury that he had been pulled off Moriarty’s case, and his insistence that he could break him if given a chance. They had begun with simply a bucket of water and fists, and escalated to electric shocks, getting more and more out of hand as they went. They didn’t stop until they finally realized he was having seizures or a heart attack–most likely both–at which point they panicked and took their tools and left.

Tempting as it was to turn them over to the office staff–and allow them to be ripped apart for keeping them all here–he handed them off to the appropriate authorities for complete interrogation and disposal and informed the medical staff of what had been done.

“Well, sir, he may wake up or he may not, and if he does wake up there is no knowing what we’ll get. The sooner he comes out of it the better the prognosis, but…” The doctor simply shrugged. “He’s stable and should be transferred to a facility more in line with long term care and rehabilitation.”

“We do have such facilities,” Mycroft nodded. He arranged for Moriarty to be transferred. It was rather sad to see such a brilliant mind wasted… If he didn’t wake up soon, and he wasn’t useful, he would likely die of some perfectly explicable medical complication: no one liked loose ends.

…

Over the course of two weeks, John Doe–Jim Moriarty–recovered sufficiently to open his eyes, make noise and occasionally form words, and eat if food was brought to his mouth or he was assisted in holding a cup. The doctors felt that was remarkable–Mycroft was told to have him disposed of.

Mycroft sat in his office and considered. This man had once kept in his head information that could bring countries to their knees–it might still reside therein. He had been a genius whose capabilities could be useful–if he ever recovered them. He had been a threat to Sherlock–he might know about other threats.

Mycroft deleted all records of Jim Moriarty from their systems and reported him dead. He had him moved to his own house and reconnected with the discreet medical professionals who had assisted him with Sherlock. He created the identity of James O'Cuinn–he chose the last name because it amused him–and created a paper trail that made Mycroft his legal guardian.

If he didn’t recover, he could be moved to a private nursing home in time and forgotten. If he did? The secured suite in his house had held Sherlock at his most vicious and desperate–it would hold him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eight weeks later.  
> TW restraint, psychological abuse. this could be triggering for some people but i am unsure how to tag it. simply rest assured that someone does something very wrong, but it is corrected.)

Mycroft almost smiled as he watched–by camera, of course–his next appointment get coffee from Lucy Williams. The man never managed to raise his eyes from her–admittedly impressive–décolletage as she fetched him coffee and a pastry and apologized for the delay. She had only been his second assistant–technically Anthea’s assistant–for a month and he had already found that having people delayed–for a few moments of coffee, pastry, ample bosom and hip, and some well-timed giggles, before seeing the formidable Mister Holmes–paid handsome dividends. They were invariably so much more relaxed–or so charged with sexual tension–that he could read them with ease, and sometimes they did, in fact, talk rather alarmingly freely to Miss Williams–or, at least, to her chest.

The fact that she was security conscious, rather intelligent, and had a pleasant phone manner was a necessity, of course, but she certainly knew how to take advantage of her assets.

Her presence in dealing with the personal meetings, phone calls, and innumerable people trying to interrupt his work had also freed Anthea for managing the highly secured work that was her real function.

“Sir?” Anthea stepped in after the meeting. “I remind you that I am taking Lucy to her combat training classes, and, since we will both be away, I had cleared your schedule to go home early.”

“Thank you; I was in fact ready to go. How is Miss Williams doing in that?”

“She will never be at my level, Sir, but in a few months she’ll be capable of defending herself.”

“Very few men–and fewer women–are at your level, Double-O Two.” Mycroft smiled at her.

“Flatterer. You know they reassigned my number when I retired.”

“No one will ever replace you,” he nodded. “However, I admit that, despite the costs to you, I am pleased you retired to duty here.”–which was as close to a declaration of undying affection as Mycroft got.

“As if I could retire elsewhere, Sir, and not assist you. Your time in the field simply proved your value to England was behind a desk.” Anthea smirked and returned the affection in the way that only a comrade in arms could manage.

Mycroft winced even as he chuckled. “Yes, well… Perhaps best we don’t recruit more of the office staff from your former company.”

“I hear Double-O Seven is going to be up for retirement soon–perhaps you need a driver?” The horrid woman said that right before she opened his office door so he couldn’t retort.

_As if he would ever willingly get in a car driven by that man–he had been given a custom armed and armored car, and returned nothing but a STEERING WHEEL once!_

Mycroft went home.

He was greeted at the door by one of the physical therapists–Peter–who held a finger to his lips and gestured for him to come in quietly. He was encouraged to watch through a partially open door as, in the next room, James was determinedly walking–followed by the other physical therapist and still using his walker, of course–toward his chair in the sitting room. Mycroft waited until he was safely ensconced in his chair with his blanket before turning to the therapist with a raised eyebrow. Peter escorted him away and smiled.

“I am pleased to see his walking has improved, but I fail to understand…?” Mycroft knew Peter was far too pleased for simply improved gait.

“James is normally escorted to his chair for when you get home, Sir, after his speech therapist at four. Today, he turned and got up after watching the telly and started coming to the room early.” Peter looked as proud as if he was the parent of a young child. “He has recognized that you come home early on Tuesdays, Sir, and that today was Tuesday–it’s amazing.”

“Is it?” Mycroft considered the benchmarks and mental progressions he’d been informed about. _This indicated an awareness of time or cyclical time, patterns, and some independent action–even if it was action that had been patterned for him before. Yes, that was in fact progress._ “I suppose it is. Well, we shouldn’t disappoint him.” Mycroft forced a smile.

That it was in fact amazing for James to be able to tell that today was the day of the week Mycroft came home early–had for three weeks–was tragic. Mycroft was supposed to be purely pragmatic about it, but he found that he had feelings about this–and they conflicted. He was delighted with James’ progress, and had come to enjoy the limited time he spent with the man–it helped that he was quiet–but at the same time it was so horrible to see a brilliant man reduced to this. _It was under my authority that this happened to him, so it was my fault._

He walked in. “Good afternoon, James.”

James looked up and there was that flash of a smile he’d given him for weeks now. An expression that might have been described as smug passed over his face, and James nodded with that odd twitch to the left that therapy hadn’t quite gotten rid of.

“How is your therapy going?” Mycroft asked him, as he always did.

James looked up at Edna and Peter. Edna smiled and patted his shoulder, “Go on…”

James took a deep breath and looked back at Mycroft. “I did well. I can get out of my own chair.” His voice lacked the charisma of Moriarty, but it was clear and not slurred.

Mycroft’s mouth opened and shut which got another of those pleased, almost smug, looks from James. “That is very good progress, James, and I can tell you’ve been working very hard with your speech therapist.”

Edna patted James on the shoulder and turned to Mycroft, “We will be off then, unless you need anything?”

“How is he doing with his reading?” Mycroft asked and saw the answer immediately when James’ face fell and an angry look began to build. “James… James, I know it’s frustrating, but I remember when you couldn’t speak at all–your ability to read will come back.”

Mycroft saw the two of them out, but before they left Peter looked at him thoughtfully and said, “Sir, I know you didn’t want to discuss his past with us, but… if his reading material could be tailored to his interests in any way, it might help.”

“I will try to find something simple that… he will be more interested in.” Mycroft nodded. The problem being in part that he had no idea what Moriarty had ever been interested in other than crime and Sherlock.

“He likes it when you read to him, you know,” Edna said with a soft smile. Peter was convinced James was an agent and Mycroft cared for him out of guilt, while Edna was convinced they had been close friends or lovers. Mycroft permitted their opinions, as they were better than the facts.

“What?” Mycroft frowned in confusion. “I… don’t read to him.”

Edna frowned, “But he told us you read him a fairy tale about some lord who tried to cheat–what was it, the Queen?–out of her property. It was rather odd, but…”

“Oh…” Mycroft’s eyes went wide. “I… Oh, yes, I had forgotten that. Yes, I read him a story…”

She smiled, “Well, he enjoyed it. Perhaps if you can get us the book he can practice reading that, or you can read him something out of our workbooks?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he nodded and locked up after them.

He went back and stared at James, who had dozed off as he so often did. He hadn’t read him a ‘story’ about a lord trying to cheat the Queen out of something, but had been speaking out loud to him about a real case, much as Sherlock spoke to his skull–or to John Watson, now.

“James…” James blinked up at him and smiled. “Would you like me to read to you?” James nodded.

Mycroft went off and fetched back the story workbook he knew they were trying to teach him from. He sat there awkwardly trying to read something that was almost impossibly, insultingly, stupid–

“Ngggggg!” James made the noise that usually preceded a meltdown of some sort and Mycroft stopped. James looked furious.

“Let me guess, you dislike this almost as much as I do?” Mycroft waved the book.

“Nggg!”

Mycroft looked back at the book. “Indeed,” he said, and pitched it into the fireplace. There was a soft noise of wonder from James followed by vehement and enthusiastic–if slightly clumsy–clapping.

“Well, now that we have consigned it to its appropriate end, let’s see if I can find you something better, hmmm?”

Mycroft looked around and considered: _I don’t have any children’s books, but, then, James wasn’t really a child…_ Eventually, he pulled out a well-worn paperback and came back to sit down. “This is actually all I have about that isn’t references or work related. Sad, really.”

Mycroft settled back and ran a finger down the pages of the book. The Saint series was one of his secret pleasures and had been since childhood. “He made for himself a world fit to live in. Simon Templar was a man who couldn’t help spreading melodrama all around him like an infectious disease,” Mycroft quoted with a smile even though it wasn’t from this specific book. _God, that sounded like Sherlock, didn’t it?_

James made a curious and pained gasp and then said, “Do you think… I'd carry a gun… in a suit like this? My… tailor would… throw a… fit.”

Mycroft’s head came up so fast he actually got dizzy. _He’d quoted The Saint._ He stared at James, who was looking at him with the most puzzled and hopeful look.

“That was a quote from a book in this series. Not this book, but one of them. Did you read them, I wonder?”

James brought his hands up and rubbed a fist into his temple as he was prone to doing under strain and with headaches.

“I’ll get you one of your pills, James.” Mycroft got up and got out a pill and a glass of water. After James took it, Mycroft insisted they eat early since it didn’t do well without food.

“That quote was very like you, you know. You always were very particular about your appearance,” Mycroft finally said–and then it hit him again how tragic this was, with James sitting there in a sort of bib, and having to have everything cut or portioned for him. “Perhaps… Perhaps we can get you some better clothing, for wearing after your therapy–would you like that?”

James looked up at him so very hopefully it was painful.

“Remember, James, you are supposed to try to speak.”

“I hate how I sound,” James said in his quiet voice, only slurring on the ‘s’ faintly.

“Do you? You… sound much better now: very clear.”

“Not… like you–like Sandy.” _His speech therapist, of course._

“You are making progress, James.”

He read to him from The Saint and Mr. Teal until James became evidently tired, and then he gave him his medication and put him to bed. James held out his hand for the book.

“If you want something you have to ask for it, James.”

“Book, please,” he asked and worried at his lips. Mycroft could suddenly see a bone-deep wariness that if he asked for anything–if he let anyone know he wanted something–they would take it away.  _What a horrible life he must have lived._ Mycroft handed him the book and closed the door.

He went upstairs, thinking. _If James Moriarty had learned early on that asking was only going to cause problems–that you only got what you demanded and took–it would certainly explain a great deal. It might explain his reluctance to speak and ask for things as well,_ he realized.

James brought the book to breakfast with him, and Mycroft wrote a note for the therapists and informed the morning nurse that it was not to be removed from his sight. James hissed at her and clutched his book…

As he set off to his office, Mycroft deliberated; after his car had gone a few blocks, he called in to work. “I shall be working from home today.”

“Certainly, Sir, I will arrange the details.” Anthea very politely didn’t ask why.

He turned the car around and considered. He knew the nurse would not hurt or abuse James, but James had taken a dislike to her over the past weeks. He had shown no similar dislike to any of the therapists, and Mycroft was beginning to be puzzled. He had put it down to the vagaries of James’ moods and tempers–he had, after all, had a week-long period when he screamed bloody murder at the sight of peas, and just as abruptly stopped–but he wondered if there was something specific.

He let himself in quietly. James’ book was sitting on the table. He walked through to James’ room and found the nurse had strapped him down to the bed–the straps had not been needed since the first week–and was washing him carefully with a washcloth. The television was on to some mindless children’s pap that any self-respecting six-year-old would have thrown up at.

“That will most certainly be all, nurse. You are dismissed. Please collect all of your belongings.”

Mycroft turned the television off with a firm click even as the nurse looked dumbfounded at him.

“What?”

“He hasn’t needed to be strapped to the bed since his nighttime medication was changed, and it inhibits the progress of his physical therapy for you to do so. I also informed you that his book was to be kept in sight of him and it was not. In addition, being exposed to… THAT…” he waved at the television, “should be against the Geneva convention.”

The nurse had the incredible gall to look pitying at him. “He’s no more than four, mentally, Mister Holmes; it’s quite educational–”

“At four I was reading rather more advanced works than most adults. In any event, his book is on the table and he is in here.” Mycroft was beginning to lose his temper, so his voice got softer and calmer. He noticed that James was flicking his eyes back and forth very quickly.

“It’s over his head, Mister Holmes,” the nurse said firmly.

“If he chooses to have a book as a comfort object instead of a teddy, that’s not your concern. You are dismissed.”

“It’sss not… over… my head.” James glared at the nurse.

“Oh, honey, yes it is… Now you’ll get all upset…” She started to pat at his face and Mycroft grabbed her hand.

“Do I need to have you arrested?”

“What?!”

“I have told you to leave, I have told you that you are dismissed, and I have informed you that you are setting back his progress. You can leave immediately, or I can have you arrested.”

She pulled back with her lips in a firm line while Mycroft undid the bed straps.

Mycroft was shocked when James threw himself at him and clung to him rather desperately: he was shaking. Mycroft looked up at the nurse and contemplated murder. He counted to ten and pulled out his phone.

“Gerald,” he spoke to the security chief on his house detail. “The morning nurse has been fired and needs to be removed from the house before I do something rash. I wish her held under the official secrets act until she has been reminded of her contractual agreements.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You can’t do that!” she shouted, demonstrating that she clearly had not understood what she had signed.

“I see I made an error in judgement,” Mycroft said trying to calm James. “Since you did not INTEND any harm, I presumed you were not in fact DOING any harm–my mistake, I shall not repeat it.” He held James while Gerald and one of the other men came in and escorted her out.

“She’s gone, James.” Mycroft picked him up out of the bed. “Let’s get you dressed.”

James was silent and clung desperately to Mycroft. _God, how could he view me as any comfort when I was responsible for this?_ They got his book–which he clutched to his chest rather desperately–and he took him with him to his home office–that at least got him to look around, never having been in this room. He settled him down in an office chair.

“Please don’t touch anything, James, just sit here. I’m going to get you a blanket and some things.”

When he came back, James was spinning the chair slowly around with a delighted look. For just a moment, he looked like Moriarty being smug and having gotten one of the office chairs into his cell–and they never had figured out how he got the key–but he’d never had such an innocent delighted look back then.

“I will obviously have to get you an office chair,” Mycroft said, and found himself smiling. He got Jim settled with his book and an apple, and sat down to work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It helps to know what you're working with...

Mycroft had been working for some time when he was startled by a tug at his pants leg: James was looking at him expectantly. After a quick check of the time he apologized to James, helped him tend to needed business, and took him through to the dining room for lunch. James was clutching his book in one hand and Mycroft’ arm with the other, but luckily Mycroft was enough taller and heavier to help steady him walking.

“I have no idea what there is for lunch today.” James made a face. “Ah? That bad, is it?” He nodded. Mycroft checked the prepared lunch in the refrigerator and frowned. “I know a schedule is important, but I am not overly fond of that myself. Would you care to order in?”

James looked at him curiously but didn’t say anything; he looked like he understood take-out menus, however. Mycroft handed him one simply to give him something to look at and James almost immediately shook his head.

“Not fond of Indian food?” Mycroft asked with a smile; he honestly didn’t think James understood what the menu was.

“Bad place.”

“Pardon?”

“Bad place,” he reiterated firmly.

Mycroft frowned and looked carefully through the stacks of take-out menus that his guards had acquired. He handed James a different Indian menu; James studied it for a while and shrugged.

“Not a bad place?” Mycroft asked him thoughtfully.

“Don’t know.”

“Alright…” Mycroft ended up ordering a roast chicken and sides from one of the delivery services.

The therapists arrived just after he finished cleaning up.

“Mister Holmes? Is everything alright?” They were blinking at him in some confusion.

He glanced at James who was simply looking at them from his seat at the table, but showing no signs of discomfort.

“No, everything is not alright, I’m afraid. Owing to my own negligence, it turned out that James was being treated poorly by the morning nurse.”

Edna looked confused and stated, “She felt we were pushing him too hard, but she did seem fond of him. I can’t picture her abusing him.”

“I’m certain she was fond of him, in her own way: that’s why I didn’t suspect abuse, since she meant well. She was strapping him into bed and infantilizing him. She refused to leave when dismissed and I had to have her escorted out.”

Peter looked stunned, “What?”

“You stated he enjoyed my reading to him, so I did. As it happens, he used to read a series of books that I have in my house, so I was reading from that…”

“I did say a familiar topic, sir,” Peter nodded.

“It gave him great comfort and he wished to keep the book with him. I left her instructions that it was to be kept in his sight, and she deliberately took that away from him as well. He has been extremely distressed and… clingy.”

They both went over to him immediately. Edna crouched down, “James? Are you alright?” He nodded. “Is that your book?” James immediately clutched it to himself and looked desperate at Mycroft.

“No one will take your book, James,” Mycroft assured him.

Peter was clenching his jaw and trying not to look angry. “Maybe we can skip reading today so he can keep his book with him.”

Mycroft cleared is throat. “Oh, err… After a brief discussion with James, I burned the workbook.”

“What?” they both said, staring at him.

James suddenly laughed–high and manic–and it sent chills up Mycroft’s spine. “Fwoosh!” he said happily.

Mycroft worked on getting his heart rate back; it didn’t seem to have bothered the two therapists.

“You… burned the work book?” Edna asked him. “Why?”

“It was idiotic, and infuriating,” Mycroft answered. _Obviously_.

The two of them looked at each other and finally Peter shrugged and said, “Well… uh… James seemed pleased about that… Maybe he’d prefer a different work book?”

“I was thinking that you could work with large print editions of books for adults.” Mycroft nodded at the book James clutched in his hands. “He… actually remembered a quote from a different book in the series.”

“He did?”

“Yes.”

“Mister Holmes… that’s incredibly good news! We should get the whole series–it may jog a few memories!”

Edna suddenly looked as though she’d been struck with a vision. Very slowly she sat down in the seat next to James. “James?” He looked at her dubiously. “Would you read to me out of your book?”

James frowned and looked down at the book. After a long pause he opened it–although not to the bookmark–and stared at it. Edna stared at it, muttered, and then she got a flexible magnifier out of her bag and–after turning a few pages–put it down and covered a great deal of the text with a paper.

“That line, James, just that one.”

Putting his finger down on the magnified page he began carefully sounding out words: “Three… weeks… later… an… early… post… brought… T-Toby…” He frowned and Mycroft filled in the name from memory, “Halidom. Toby Halidom.” James breathed out in a relieved fashion and continued, “A letter.”

Mycroft felt utterly dumbstruck.

Edna put her hand on the book and looked at James. “What did Toby get?”

“A letter.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“It was three weeks...” Edna prompted.

“Later,” James nodded.

Mycroft suddenly saw the fault in the question. “He cannot answer the question of ‘when’, Edna, because he doesn’t know what it’s three weeks later THAN. It is three weeks later, but from what?”

Peter walked to his bag and came back with a magazine of some sort of current events and gossip. “This is written in a more modern style and at a lower grade level.” He opened it up and put it down on the table in front of James. James spent quite a few minutes staring at the photos and turning pages rather clumsily.

Eventually Peter put his finger down near some larger print. “Can you read that for me, James?”

James gave him what could only be described as a put upon look. “Will… Carol… and… John… return… to the… set…?”

“Very good!”

James looked at this point as though he had run a marathon and all three of them quickly decided a nap was in order. Peter took him–and his book–off to bed.

“That was amazing.” Edna looked down at her magnifying sheet and then shook her head, “My apologies, Mister Holmes.”

“For what? You certainly haven’t been in charge of overseeing his treatment– I am.”

“For accidentally contributing to the problem. We kept going to simpler and simpler workbooks because he got so frustrated and wouldn’t, or–we thought–couldn’t read them… He was having difficulty reading–as you saw–but by going backwards in comprehension level we were frustrating him more.”

“I see…” Mycroft sighed. “It’s difficult. He was such a genius before… Everything must be terribly frustrating.”

“Anyone recovering from brain trauma usually suffers from extreme frustration, Mister Holmes, especially as some areas may recover while others remain blocked. You can have people who can think clearly but can’t form the words to express themselves.”

Mycroft nodded. _The frustration would have driven me mad by now._ “I will be trying to find a nurse who will understand that he is an adult with difficulties, not–as she said–a mental four-year-old.”

Edna stared at him. “Four?”

“That is what she said.”

Edna looked furious. “I hope she never shows her face–I’ll rip it off!”

“If she does, go ahead–I’ll have the charges dropped.”

She looked at him and finally asked. “He… wasn’t your lover, was he?”

“No.”

“I thought he had been.”

“I know, but Peter is closer to the truth, I’m afraid.”

She looked at him very thoughtfully indeed. “You don’t actually know that much about him, do you?”

“No… We… dealt with each other professionally.” Mycroft sighed, “I know next to nothing about him personally–neither does anyone else we can ask. I know how he liked his tea, and that he liked apples…”

“You do understand that brain trauma can change–drastically change–someone?”

“That has been quite evident, yes,” Mycroft nodded. “You two were hired for your expertise in brain trauma patients and… secure situations.”

“Well, at least this patient hasn’t tried to kill us.”

“Did your last one?”

“No, but… prior to our last one, we had an injured MI6 agent. He often had difficulty differentiating ‘therapist’ from ‘terrorist’.” Edna smiled, but Mycroft knew enough about their clearance level to suspect that was literal truth.

“Well… James seems to like you two. It was his dislike of his nurse that caused me to return home for the day. I did remember the incident with the peas, so I wasn’t convinced it was a genuine problem…”

Edna nodded. “She might have just reminded him of someone, as well. That is a problem we see in brain trauma: some association gets triggered and…”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Well, I can tell you a few things about James right now: first of all, there is a brilliant mind in there, and it IS still there; he follows conversations, which most brain trauma patients have difficulty with; and despite his frustration–and he is very frustrated–he takes his upset out primarily on objects, not us, and he hasn’t taken a swing at you in my sight since the first week.”

“No… he hasn’t. I am on alert for it, of course, especially with utensils and such, but… No.”

“That’s why I thought he might have been your lover, honestly.”

“I see… “

“He is determined, and he works very hard in therapy. His coordination is improving dramatically: I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but if he were to continue at this pace he might very well be walking unaided soon, and–as long as you don’t expect gymnastics–he might be able to travel and get about quite normally. His speech therapy has been going phenomenally well: Sandy said he must have had an excellent education or been a voracious reader.”

“Well, apparently, he read The Saint…”

“And that was both somewhat archaic language and written at a close to college level, from what I saw.” She nodded. “He is able to track patterns–like knowing Tuesdays you come home early–and his current memory retention is improving.”

“So definitely not a four-year-old?”

“It doesn’t even apply.” She looked frustrated, “Putting it simply, he has had a brain injury, and one part of his capability may be operating at full while another is blocked, which causes massive frustration–like having a full kitchen full of food and being unable, for some unknown reason, to eat any of it.” Mycroft nodded. “And sometimes during recovery a portion of the brain will apparently regress… it’s like a light flickering before it comes back on.” She sighed, “So he might have the speech capability of a four-year-old–today–and yet be thinking as well as an adult, and that can change rapidly as pathways are stressed and recover.”

“The concern is both what will happen as he recovers, and what will happen if he does not.” Mycroft sighed.

Peter came out. “He fell asleep. We overdid it a bit I think, especially with all the stress.”

“I owe you twenty,” Edna sighed.

Peter grinned, “Agent?”

“Mister Holmes couldn’t tell us about his personal likes and dislikes because he didn’t know.”

Peter nodded and looked at Mycroft, “It’s very kind of you to take care of him personally.”

Mycroft sighed, “Please sit down.” After they were seated, he looked thoughtful, “You two were briefly involved in therapy with my last private patient…”

“Your brother, yes; how is he doing?”

“Well enough, although he barely talks to me.”

They both winced. Peter commented, “Drug addiction is, I suspect, worse than brain trauma in some cases…”

“There is, certainly, the added aggravation that he did it to himself, yes.” Mycroft cleared his throat. “You may recall that I had you agree to several more than the usual security and privacy clauses?”

They both looked at each other and said, “Yes.”

“What I am about to say goes no further–I do take it you understand?”

“Of course!”

“I know next to nothing about James’ actual tastes, interests, or background, because, as I told Edna, I mostly dealt with him professionally. What I did not say was that we were not on the same side.”

Edna’s eyes went very large, but Peter looked as though things were suddenly making sense.

“I had wondered about a few things…” Peter murmured.

“When it became apparent that he was not going to be immediately useful, I was told to have him disposed of.”

“I am not certain I am comfortable assisting his recovery if he is just going to be shot, sir.”

“I have no plans to.” Mycroft sighed. “At first I convinced myself it was merely sound and practical to give him more time–his information was valuable. You do understand that as time goes by his information becomes less valuable?”

They both nodded.

“The specific information he was in interrogation for is no longer relevant. Much else that he knew is no longer relevant… and I am forced to admit that I was doing this more for guilt, and because his accident was my responsibility, than for practicality.”

“Can you tell us what happened, now?”

“Some individuals decided to abuse a prisoner in my custody.” Mycroft  said very stiffly.

“Waterboarding?” Peter asked, but his voice  wasn’t questioning as much as stating.

“Among other things, they used a bucket of water. I believe they escalated from a cloth over the face to dunking and holding him under rather quickly.” Mycroft looked curiously at him, “How do you know?”

“He shows some fear of wet cloths, and when we had to mop the first time he became distressed at the sight of the bucket.”

“His nurse was restraining him and washing him with a flannel, so that was undoubtedly not helping.”

They both looked furious.

Mycroft looked down at his hands, “They used fists, of course, and then electricity. They stopped when he was in seizures and left him–they had disabled the observation. This happened under my authority–for all that I didn’t authorize it.”

“Poor James…” Edna looked thoughtful, “Was his name James?”

“He certainly USED James–and Jim–and had for years. I thought keeping a familiar given name would help; I only changed the last name. As far as the intelligence community is concerned, the man died–was disposed of–less than three weeks after the incident. This has been on my own initiative.”

“He won’t be… disposed of at this point? As I said, I can’t–”

Mycroft shook his head. “I found one of his bank accounts, in any event, and had it transferred to a trust in his new name. At the worst, he would live his life in some more ordinary assisted care facility…” He shook his head.

“You have become fond of him, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Rather silly of me, but I have. Admittedly, I had a great deal of respect for his intellect, if not his activities, before.”

“He is very fond of you.”

“I hadn’t thought so until he was clinging to me today.”

“I mean he seeks you out, he clearly anticipates your arrival home…”

“Given that I bear the responsibility for his current condition–and I was in charge of his interrogation–I don’t see why.” Mycroft sighed. “Although he did seem to enjoy talking to me. Admittedly, that was mostly jibes and taunting, but I don’t expect he found any of the other interrogators to be at his level.”

“You said he was brilliant.”

“Oh, yes. If he’d been on our side, he would have been an incredible asset.”

Peter sighed, “So we don’t actually know his personal tastes… What was his cover? Was there anything that seems to be consistent? Or maybe thoughtless things?”

“As I said: I know how he liked his tea–or, at least, how he took it–and he seemed to like apples, which is why I made certain he has them here and he does in fact seem to like them. He often had a bit of candy or gum in his mouth. He was particular with his clothing–even when he was playing a different role; he took great care with his clothing. I suggested getting him nicer clothing for after therapy sessions and he seemed pleased. He seemed to like music, but that could have been part of his cover… He was obsessed with my brother, but my brother has apparently thwarted some of his activities…”

“He had?” Edna asked in confusion. Peter cleared his throat and added, “The brother you had here?”

“He has become something of a consultant to the Yard and he works in a freelance capacity for intelligence. For all his faults, my brother is very good at what he does. James was rather obsessed… I have refrained from mentioning my brother in front of him–hence my request that you not do so when I hired you.”

“Oh.”

“Well, now we know he had read these Saint books… and apparently enough to quote one?”

“Yes. A line about well-fitted suits and tailors, in fact.” Mycroft smiled.

“That’s a start,” Peter nodded firmly. “We can look up books that would be easier to read that are on the same reader lists with those books, find out what else fans of the books tend to like. If he was interested in style and clothing, I can bring magazines.”

“He wore custom tailored garments in many of his appearances. I am in fact concerned that some of the clothiers might recognize him, even now, if I took him out.”

“Well, it’s a start.”

“I will need a reference for a caretaker to replace that nurse…”

Edna looked thoughtful, “I know a lot of good nurses and home health aides–the problem is the security. Let me go through my contacts.”

“I can work from home most mornings this week…”

They worked out the schedule, with Peter and Edna arriving early and planning to do their paperwork in the house on the day Mycroft couldn’t stay home–by that point they should have been able to find a replacement, especially since he didn’t need so much a nurse as a caretaker.

Mycroft told them he would be back as soon as possible and called his driver.

“221 Baker Street.” There was no way around it: he needed to speak to Sherlock.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a bit of others' perspectives

James woke up from another nightmare where he was being held down while people shocked him and poured water over him and held a cloth to his face. Peter and Edna were there and helped him sit up and drink some water and take his medication. _The nurse had been told to go away for doing that, hadn’t she?_ He knew he had to sort out what was real and what was a nightmare quickly or they got jumbled.

“Was… nurse?” _No, there were more words, damn it!_ “Did she hurt me?”

Edna sighed, “She scared you, I think. She meant well, but she didn’t DO well.”

Peter’s eyes got intent, the way they did when he was solving problems. “James? Are you having trouble telling the difference between what SHE did and what OTHER people did?”

 _Oh God, YES! Yes, that was it!_ He nodded frantically.

Peter looked at Edna, “Brain trauma and PTSD–that’s going to confuse things.” Then he looked back at James. “The nurse was treating you like a child. She didn’t MEAN to hurt you, but she was wrong. Mister Holmes came home early because he was worried about you and found out she wasn’t doing her job properly.”

James tried to sort that out. _Memories of being tied down and hurt…_ He finally pulled one of the bed straps up and held it up to them.

Peter looked at it. “Yes, she strapped you in–Mister Holmes said she was washing you with a flannel…” He looked over at Edna. “Oh God, if he’s been having the trauma reinforced like that all the time…!”

Edna suddenly pulled him in to a hug, “Oh, honey… We didn’t know… Mister Holmes didn’t know…”

“He… stopped them?” _Is that why I’m alive? But why didn’t he stop them before… before everything broke and things got so confused?_

“He stopped her,” Peter said after a pause. “He didn’t know about the other people until it was over.”

James just nodded and let his eyes drift off to the side. He had figured out back when he was still in the hospital that when he did that people thought that he’d forgotten about whatever it was–or at least they stopped talking about it…

 _So my memories were right: I’d been suffocated with water, and probably the rest of it, too_ –but they were jumbled up with other memories. _The nurse hadn’t been there when I was first hurt, she’d just been hurting me HERE, and been stupid._

 _Edna Therapist and Peter Therapist weren’t stupid… Mister Holmes was definitely not stupid. Sandy Speech Therapist would be here soon; she was… she was stupid, except she was very good at her job._ He let his thoughts drift as Peter and Edna took him through his day.

He was working on copying letters and using a pencil when a thought suddenly hit him very hard: _Mister was a title, like Doctor, or Nurse… Holmes was a Mister… What did it mean, and why was it in the wrong order?_

“Why… is…” he struggled for how to ask.

“Yes, James?” Edna was looking at the paper– _Oh, she thought I had a problem with that..._

“No. Mister Holmes.”

“What about him?”

He pointed at Edna. “Edna.”

“Yes?”

“Mister?” He put his puzzled face on.

She suddenly looked enlightened. “OH! His first name is Mycroft. Mycroft Holmes.”

“My croft?”

“It’s a funny name, isn’t it?”

He nodded. _It was familiar though, like the man had been familiar. He’d been familiar the first time I’d seen him in the hospital–no one else was._ At first he’d been afraid of him, and he didn’t know why. He’d heard people talking, with and without Mister Holmes, about killing him in the hospital–it hadn’t been clear what they meant until almost at the end.

When Mister Holmes had come in and given him a shot and he’d gone away, he never expected to wake up again.

He’d been so very confused to wake up in someplace like this. He’d understood that the door was very secure, and there were no real windows, so he was still a prisoner–but then he’d been allowed out, into a sitting room in a house, and he’d realized it was Mister Holmes’ HOUSE. He lived here. It had taken him a while to understand that he must have not wanted him killed, and snuck him out. That was when he realized that he was… a friend? Something…

Mister Holmes spoke to him when he was home, as though James could understand him–more and more, he could. He seemed upset that James was so broken. The therapists seemed to want him to get better, so the nurse had confused him because she didn’t.

 _If they hadn’t known, that made sense._ The word “mole” drifted through his mind, and “traitor”.

Sandy arrived. He continued to feign sleep after exertion. They talked in front of him when he did that. She was told about the nurse: she was upset, but she didn’t understand as much as Edna and Peter.

They had ordered food in for lunch. He remembered that–he must have done that before. _Something was wrong with the first place–I wonder what it was?_ He let his mind drift and he clutched his book tightly. It was important. _I remember… a man in stylish suits who did as he pleased, and no one could touch him… I wonder if my name had been Simon Templar? No, James sounded more familiar._

“Ready to work with me?” Sandy touched him gently on the shoulder.

He startled and pretended to just notice her. “Hello… Sandy,” he said, careful of the ‘S’ in her name.

“Oh, very good! That’s much better!” She hugged him and he went back to work.

*

Mycroft braced himself for the worst as he drove to Baker Street. _Sherlock had been better, with Doctor Watson in residence, but… he had taken the news of Moriarty’s death far worse than I had ever expected. Despite asking for my assistance in protecting John, and helping me to find and intercept Moriarty to pick him up… he had still taken his death as a betrayal._

It wasn’t until he was half way to the flat that Mycroft realized that he actually thought of Moriarty as being dead. _James was James, not Moriarty._ After a moment of stun, he put that mindset back in place–it would help conceal the truth from Sherlock.

The first thing he heard as he came up the stairs was, “Whatever you want the answer is no.”

“Sherlock!” John’s voice scolding from the kitchen.

Mycroft came in and sat down, and John brought him tea. “Thank you, John.”

“It’s still no.” Sherlock glared at him from the sofa. “Get your own people to do it.” A _t least Sherlock was looking at me this time._

“In this instance, Sherlock, I quite literally cannot.”

“Eh?” John looked at him, “Do I need to get lost then?”

“No, in fact I would appreciate you staying for this.” _After all, he never brings up Moriarty in front of you._

John raised an eyebrow and sat down after giving Sherlock his tea.

“Your people too incompetent to handle the case? And the answer is still no.”

“I can’t tell any of my people there is a case, and I’m not certain there is one.”

“What?” Sherlock sat up slightly.

Mycroft sipped his tea and considered. “Of course, this is in strict confidence.”

“Obviously!” huffed Sherlock.

John nodded, “Of course.”

Mycroft took out the menu from the Indian restaurant that James had said was a “Bad Place” and put it on the table.

“This, and two words, are the only clues, and they could mean everything–or nothing.”

“Stop being melodramatic, Mycroft!”

“I’m being quite literal.” He sighed. “I visited with a former… intelligence operative. He had suffered a brain trauma in the line of duty, and is under long term care–he doesn’t even remember me.”

John winced, “I’m so sorry; a few of my old unit suffered like that from concussive damage.”

Mycroft nodded; after looking up Doctor Watson’s service, he knew exactly who he referred to. “In any event, when I offered to order food he looked at this menu and said ‘bad place’. When I inquired again, he repeated it. When I showed him a menu from a different Indian restaurant, however, and asked his opinion he merely shrugged, and had no such reaction.”

Sherlock looked intrigued despite himself. “That could mean anything.”

“Indeed. It could be that he had bad food there once, that they were involved in illicit dealings of some sort–or merely that he didn’t like the logo.” Mycroft nodded. “Thus my difficulties. In addition to that, his security clearance is currently highly questionable–technically, I shouldn’t meet with him at all.”

“Especially not at your house, Mycroft.” Sherlock snorted.

 _Well_ , Mycroft thought, _that was inevitable– he wasn’t an idiot after all._

John looked puzzled, “How do you know it was at his house?”

“The delivery radius of the restaurant,” Sherlock said arching an eyebrow at John. “Nothing terribly obscure.”

“Oh.” John looked embarrassed.

“As you can imagine, I can hardly go to my agents with a request that they find out if a cryptic comment by a person I shouldn’t be having any contact with meant they served bad lamb, or were in league with terrorists.”

“I do, in fact, see the problem,” Sherlock nodded. “Why should I take the case?”

 _A distinct step up from no._ Mycroft offered him a polite fee, with a bonus if it turned out to be anything notable. Sherlock held out for a higher fee, and a specific level of reward for finding anything useful: Mycroft agreed.

“It would be better if I met this agent, I could perhaps deduce–”

“No, Sherlock,” Mycroft shook his head. “Besides, if I couldn’t deduce the answer from them…”

Sherlock stared at him for a moment and then shrugged. “I will take it, but I still think it would be easier if you let me meet him.”

Mycroft just said, “Let me know your progress. Thank you for the tea, John.” Then he collected his umbrella and left– he had a great deal of rescheduling to do, after all.

*

Once Mycroft had left, Sherlock smiled amusedly at the menu. “Get the fingerprint kit and my gloves, John.”

“What?”

“Get the fingerprint kit and my gloves. My brother forgets that there are mundane ways of getting information.”

“Wouldn’t a spy not have their fingerprints on file?”

“A spy might not, but someone in long-term care would–in case they wandered or got lost.”

“Oh, of course!”

“Unless Mycroft has them in private care in his home,” Sherlock added.

“What?”

“I believe Mycroft has them in private care in his home: I recognize a scent that was clinging to him. It belongs to a soap that very few people use in London–one of them a physical therapist he has used before. Not many people use a soap scented with _Gaultheria procumbens, Betula lenta, Lavandula angustifolia,_ and _Symphytum officinale_ , but Edna does. It is quite possible that she is the agent’s therapist–likely, in fact–but for the scent to cling to his jacket so strongly indicates that he had direct and recent contact.”

“Scented with what then?”

“Wintergreen, sweet birch, lavender, and comfrey.”

“You… remember the ingredients of a soap… used by a brain trauma therapist… because Mycroft has ‘used her before’?”

“Yes.” Sherlock looked very thoughtfully at John and then finally grudgingly admitted, “She was one of the people Mycroft hired to treat me during rehab. There are not many high-security, combat-trained physical therapists that work outside of the handful of secured hospitals. The fact that she used a custom blended soap was memorable.”

John stared at him. “You… went through rehab… in his HOUSE?”

“Yes. He has a secure suite of rooms.” Sherlock felt a sour taste in his mouth even thinking about it. “I… escaped from too many other facilities.” He looked thoughtfully at John and then back off into the distance. “In all honesty, I should probably find the people who treated me and apologize.”

John’s eyes went wide and he put his tea cup down with a clatter. “Jesus! How badly did you break them!?”

“Well, several of them quit after I deduced at them…” he rubbed at his elbows unconsciously, “and I found out Edna and Peter were combat trained and experts in restraint holds rather the hard way…”

John stared at him and finally rubbed his forehead in a pained fashion. “Sherlock, we REALLY need to talk more about your background: stuff like this keeps coming up and biting me.”

“In any event, I expect that’s why Mycroft couldn’t have me meet him. It would become obvious he was being treated in his home–the question is why?”

“They were friends?”

“My brother doesn’t have friends.”

“Can’t you just… deduce it?”

Sherlock grumbled, “Not when my brother is on guard–which he was.” Sherlock paused and then jumped up. “John, you’ve done it again!”

“Uh… good?”

“He’d been home during the day–which is unusual–hence ordering in lunch! He must have left when the therapists showed up, which is why her soap scent was still clinging so… which means they are taking their shift in the afternoons. The morning nurse must have called out.”

“Okay… that makes sense… so?”

“So we can watch the house in the afternoons once we solve this case!”

“Uh… Sherlock? Why are you so intent on figuring this out?”

Sherlock turned a puzzled frown to him. “Because Mycroft doesn’t want me to?”

“Oh, of course,” John sighed.

“Get your things. We need to go eat at this restaurant once I finish collecting fingerprints.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soap blend courtesy of my friend at https://blackthornhoodooblends.com/ (she also has a book coming out soon!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I promise we will keep your secret Mister Holmes: as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you are made entirely of steel and tea.”

Mycroft called and let Peter know he was running late–he was told not to concern himself. He came in with his newly acquired shopping bags and inquired as to how he could make amends for his tardiness.

“Mister Holmes, this is without question one of the nicer assignments we’ve had, and you are usually very prompt–please don’t worry,” Edna said, shaking her head.

He raised an eyebrow. “This is one of the nicer…?”

Peter looked over from his position next to James–who was in his chair, looking over, and _yes, he’d seen the bags_ –“James is a sweetheart and he works very hard.”

“I am glad to hear it. Could I interest you in dinner by way of apology?”

Edna smiled, “Sadly, I have other commitments tonight but I would be delighted to take a raincheck.”

Peter looked thoughtful, “We came in one car, but I can stay if you can get me a car home?”

“Certainly.”

James was looking curious and finally looked at the bags and put on his puzzled face.

“James, please use your words,” Mycroft said as gently as possible.

“What… is in the bag?” he asked, and both Edna and Peter looked delighted.

“I purchased some better clothing for you.” Mycroft waved at the bags. “It’s not up to what you used to wear, but I did think it would be better if most of it was washable.” Peter and Edna were looking at him with approval, which shouldn’t have meant anything but did.

Slowly an expression of surprise and then a pleased look appeared on James’ face. “You… did?”

“I said I would.”

James pushed himself up out of the chair suddenly and looked at Peter. “Help?”

Peter looked a bit bewildered but finally asked, “Help what, James?”

“Dress…” James frowned and looked back and forth.

“You don’t need to change now, James.”

James got his stubborn look again. “For dinner.”

Mycroft smiled suddenly, “Oh, of course. Naturally, we dress properly for dinner. Can you assist him Peter?” He went up to his room to change and he ordered in supper.

When he came back down, he found James sitting at the table wearing his new slacks and Henley. Peter had combed his hair back and he looked far more like someone you might see out and about, and less like an invalid.

Peter smiled, “James was upset that he didn’t have any ties.”

“I thought we should stick with easily washable items, James,” Mycroft said, and then smiled at him. “However, you look very good in casual clothing.”

James made faces at the bib, and seemed to be taking greater care not to spill food–he certainly spilled less. Mycroft spoke to Peter about having him wear better clothing, since it seemed to improve his self-esteem.

Mycroft read to James from The Saint, and went to put him to bed as usual, when rather abruptly James balked. He was trying to back away from the room and shaking his head.

 _Oh, of course, this was the first night since the nurse…_ “She won’t be coming back, James.” He braced for an argument but James mostly looked pleadingly at him as he took him in to bed. After he helped get James changed into his pajamas, he considered… “Would you be happier if I removed the straps from the bed? We only kept them in case you had another seizure…” _Or became violent, but that seems less likely now._ James nodded slowly. Mycroft took the bed apart enough to slide the strap arrangement away and carefully took it to the hall storage closet. He put James to bed.

In the morning, he went down and unlocked the room only to find that James was up and had dressed himself. _Well… he’d tried to dress himself._ He was on the verge of a meltdown and rather tangled up in his clothes. Fortunately, it didn’t take much to get him calmed down and dressed properly.

“That was very well done, James,” Mycroft told him once they had him dressed, and James smiled at him. “I’m going to unpack the shower seat and see if Peter thinks you can bathe yourself…” James looked very enthused about it.

He got him settled in the office with an apple, and then handed him his other surprise: a phone/notepad. Mycroft had purchased it on a whim when he was clothes shopping and loaded it with educational and skill building apps. James stared at it in wonder, and the expression of “For me?” on his face was very clear.

“Yes, James, for you. We will go over it in detail a bit later, but for right now…” He showed him one of the games that involved matching and selecting things; James picked it up slowly, but he did eventually get it.

When Edna and Peter arrived, he explained about the phone. “I originally was only thinking of games and perhaps downloaded books: I did set it up so he has an account to purchase eBooks. As far as being a phone, however, for right now I have it locked down rather thoroughly, but I thought he might feel more secure if he could call in the event of a problem. I entered a number for me that goes to a voice mail box, but can you go over the importance of emergency use only? Or is that too difficult for him?”

Much to Mycroft’s surprise, Edna hugged him and Peter grinned. “I promise we will keep your secret Mister Holmes: as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you are made entirely of steel and tea.”

“Yes, well…” He cleared his throat. “If there are any other games or apps that can be of use, simply set them up.” He handed them the passwords and permissions and hurried to work.

Just as he was getting ready to close things down for the day, he noticed a message in the voice mail box he’d established for James; frowning and a bit worried, he played it.

“Thank you… Mister Holmes. I promise only… for emergencies.” You could hear the concentration in his voice, and as it hung up he heard Sandy’s voice saying, “That was great!”

Mycroft smiled at the phone and then looked up at the door where Anthea was waiting. She frowned and walked in, closing the door behind her.

She did the usual check for bugs that was routine for both of them, and then looked at him thoughtfully, “I assume this has something to do with your houseguest?”

“Astute as always, my dear, and of course better if you know nothing about it.”

“Plausible deniability is not my forte, Sir.” She tapped a pen on the desk, “I was already concerned, but your absence yesterday and abrupt rescheduling of your mornings is worrisome.”

“As noted, I have a houseguest, and the morning nurse had to be–”

“–rushed off by your security and is being shipped off to a children’s care center.”

“Only because having her shot would raise questions,” he grumbled.

Anthea raised a highly expressive eyebrow. “How kind of you to invite me to your house for dinner. I accept.”

“You truly do not wish to be involved–”

“Say that to any Double O and you may be driven home hogtied in your own boot. Say that to ME when I have already told you I need to know, and you can take tomorrow’s phone calls there as well.”

“This is your last chance to maintain your innocence,” he warned her.

She glared at him and addressed him by his little known and best forgotten field name, “Merlin, I assure you that my innocence was long gone before we met–you DO remember how we met?”

There was a minute tightening of the corner of one eye as he remembered their first mission. “Yes, if you’d been given the correct information things would have gone far better, but the situation is quite different this time!”

“Let me be the judge of that. Lead on.”

“I had planned to cook…” he said with a sigh.

“Lovely, I always enjoyed your cooking.”

They stopped at the market and picked up the groceries he had waiting for him–luckily, he had over-ordered by a bit. When they arrived at his house, he texted Peter: “Company with me, this could be difficult.”

Peter met them at the door. “Mister Holmes,” he smiled politely as he let him in and took his coat. “And this is?”

Anthea looked him over. “If Sherlock was in trouble again I would have heard about it.”

“Indeed. Peter, this is my PA, Anthea. Anthea, you have seen Peter’s photo from my brother’s file, I assume?”

“Yes…” She suddenly pushed past him into the house.

“Damn,” Mycroft muttered and walked after her.

When he caught up, she was standing with her hand close to one of her concealed weapons and staring at James, who was sitting in his usual chair looking completely blank at her. Edna was moving to place herself in front of James.

“Anthea, my office please.”

“Oh, you have QUITE a bit to answer, Sir.”

She marched past to the office, keeping her eyes on James.

Mycroft paused at the chair and patted James on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back, James.”

James grabbed his wrist and tugged. “Nggg…” He was looking worriedly at Anthea. She turned and watched suspiciously.

“James?” Mycroft tried to get him to let go of his wrist.

“Scary,” James said looking straight at Anthea; a ghost of a smile flickered across her face.

“Yes, yes she is, but she won’t hurt me.”

Edna helped to detach his hands, and Mycroft went after Anthea into the office. She stopped when she saw the pile of pillows and folded blankets on the floor.

“Yes, he was in my office today and yesterday while I worked. Since the nurse had to be dismissed, I had to watch him.”

“He… is supposed to be dead.” She looked annoyed. “In fact, all of the paperwork was quite in order, and his body was disposed of in the usual manner.”

“You mean Moriarty? Certainly,” he nodded. “Quite dead.”

“Why, sir?” she sighed in an exasperated tone.

“This happened on my watch, Anthea.”

“A lamentable incident. The perpetrators were found and disposed of. Next?”

“He showed signs of improvement even in the hospital–and they ordered him disposed of.”

“He should have been disposed of, even if this had never happened, Sir.”

Mycroft set his jaw. “It was my responsibility. I do not take kindly to people telling me how to resolve it. If they can leave it to my judgment as to how to deal with the Vilmas incident, then they can leave it to me to determine how to deal with him.”

“He’s been here since his death?”

“Obviously.”

“And what are you doing with him?”

“At the moment, we have hopes that he will be able to live on his own with a visiting care nurse.”

Anthea suddenly rubbed her hand across her face. “I don’t believe I am hearing this. Mycroft Holmes, are you feeling GUILTY?”

“Of course I am! The man was brilliant!”

“Then put him out of his misery!”

“Now that we’ve gotten rid of that nurse, he isn’t miserable!” Mycroft glared at her–Anthea sadly was one of the few people immune to his glare. “He has made great strides despite her undermining his recovery. Peter and Edna have been very positive.”

“He’s a killer!”

“He’s a consultant: he directs killers–did. He has been one of their better patients and–aside from some incidents that appear to be something like post-traumatic stress–has been entirely reasonable and well behaved.”

“And if he suddenly isn’t?”

“He is under near-constant observation by some of the best people in the business: I think we’d notice.”

“And if he decides to cut your throat one night?”

“He is staying in the suite I had made for Sherlock: if he couldn’t manage it, I doubt James will.”

“WHY?! This is distracting you from your work, taking a great deal of time and resources–”

“It’s my time, and my resources,” he said flatly. “Lady Smallwood’s rose garden probably takes up more time and money than James, and I am quite certain that Lord Anders show dogs take up far more of his time that James takes of mine.”

“You can’t keep the most dangerous man in England as a… pet!”

Mycroft frowned, “First of all, he isn’t that anymore, sadly–that’s the problem. Secondly, I HAVE been keeping him for the past two months, so you are demonstrably incorrect.”

Anthea stood there with her head in her hand, muttering. Finally she spoke in a resigned tone, “Couldn’t you just get an invalid military doctor to keep, like your brother?”

“Far too noisy, always underfoot, and needs too much exercise,” Mycroft answered blandly. “I believe he’s related to a Jack Russel Terrier.”

Anthea tried not to but she snickered.

“Alright, so what’s he?”

“James? I’m not sure whether he’s a particularly mellow dog, or a rather stubborn cat.” He arched an eyebrow, “He at least doesn’t need walkies all over London and doesn’t seem to be a gun dog like the good doctor.”

She stared at him and then snickered a bit more, and then finally burst into giggles. “Don’t be silly: Watson isn’t a Jack Russel… gun dog? Doctor? Blond? He’s a yellow lab!”

“Undoubtedly crossed with a terrier, hence his shorter stature,” Mycroft answered with a perfectly straight face.

When she could stop laughing she hung her head. “You win.”

He nodded regally. “Now, if I am going to prepare any dinner at all, I need to get started, and we are delaying Edna and Peter from leaving for the evening. Can you promise me you won’t cause any trouble for my guest?”

“Fine,” she shook her head, “I won’t tell anyone, and if they find out I had no idea.” She poked a finger at him. “But I want to talk to him and to those therapists.”

“Very well, but please don’t frighten him.”

“Why not? He’ll attack me?”

“More likely he will cry on me or on Edna and refuse to sleep.” Mycroft sighed, “He may also have one of his rather epic meltdowns in which he throws all of his belongings and risks damaging himself on the walls and floors–although he hasn’t done that in almost a month.”

She stared at him. “Are you joking?”

“No. Please do come along.”

When they got back out Peter and Edna were both working on trying to keep James calm–and they were failing. He was making what could only be called whining and moaning noises, which Mycroft knew meant he was too upset to form words. He walked over quickly.

“James, James! I’m right here, it’s alright.” Mycroft braced himself for a further meltdown but all that happened was James clutching at him rather worriedly. He looked over Mycroft’s shoulder and hissed at Anthea in the same way he had hissed at the nurse.

“No, no, she’s not going to hurt you…” Mycroft was trying to smooth his hair back. “Now just look, you’ve gotten your shirt all bunched up.” He started putting James shirt back in place.

“Hsssss.” James was giving Anthea a rather viper-like look–or perhaps a rather feline one.

Edna sighed, “He became more and more upset the longer you were gone.” She looked dubiously at Anthea.

“He did say she was scary.” Peter nodded. “He probably thought she would hurt you.”

“No… Anthea isn’t a danger to me, just to James.” Mycroft sighed. “You have already managed to frighten him, my dear.”

“He’s a threat,” she said calmly.

James’ suddenly snapped his head up at Mycroft. “Tiger?”

“What?” A sentiment echoed by everyone.

James eyes focused slowly on Anthea–more the wide, blank look he usually trained on anyone unfamiliar than the suspicious glare–then, slowly, his face fell and he started to cry.


	6. Chapter 6

Mycroft had to postpone cooking until tomorrow, Peter and Edna had to extend their stay, and Anthea ended up having to go out and pick up dinner–because James would not answer; would not move; would not respond in any way, other than to moan the word “tiger” at intervals and rock back and forth curled up into a ball.

With some reluctance Peter got the sedatives, and once James went limp they put him to bed. Mycroft tucked his book in with him, and moved the phone well out of reach–but left it in the room.

“Should we take it out so he doesn’t damage it?” Edna asked.

“If he does, I will replace it.” Mycroft shrugged, “I am more concerned that he feels assured that his things are not being taken away. The book, being out of print, is less replaceable, in fact.”

They locked him into his room and went to eat, with Peter and Edna looking dubiously at Anthea.

“I will want to speak to the two of you about him,” she said.

“They don’t know his background, Anthea, merely that he was injured in interrogation by unauthorized personnel and that he was opposing us.”

Anthea raised an eyebrow, “That is most of it, isn’t it?”

“The name he was using is irrelevant, and that individual is dead. His name is James O’Cuinn.”

Edna frowned, “if we knew more specifically what he was doing, and how he did it–what kind of patterns he used–we might be able to–”

“I need to know whether that man is a threat,” Anthea stated firmly.

“James?” Peter sounded incredulous. “I wish all of our patients were as sweet as he is.”

Mycroft coughed, “He didn’t seem that sweet during his last meltdown, but I admit he is very pleasant company of late.”

“No one is pleasant company on overload, Mister Holmes,” Edna shook her head. “He is very frustrated, and probably often quite frightened, but he works very hard and is generally a sweetheart.” She glanced at Anthea. “Of course, our standards for good patients may be a bit skewed.”

“Ah, well. Yes,” Mycroft nodded.

Anthea glared at them, “And what is it I am not being told now?”

Mycroft cleared his throat, “Edna and Peter are currently contract employees with extremely high security clearances, but they did work for a time directly for MI6 in the Double O program.”

Anthea felt cold chills travel up her spine. “Oh? What department?”

“Same one we work in now, Miss,” Peter smiled politely. “Medical and Psychological Rehabilitation.”

Anthea edged slightly backwards.

Edna looked her over thoughtfully, “Your stance indicated a leg injury: when you were considering going for your weapon your balance was a bit odd…”

“Yes, well, I’m sure I can trust these two to keep an eye on him, Mycroft…” Anthea was looking at them like they had become two poisonous snakes.

Mycroft covered his mouth and tried to suppress the snicker; she glared at him.

“So, M was correct, there is actually an instinctive hatred of the medical department that goes along with your Double O designation?” Mycroft finally managed to ask politely.

Peter looked like he suddenly understood. “Oh? You were a Double O? That explains it,” he nodded. “Professional paranoia.”

Edna tilted her head faintly. “Leg… You were Double O Two? Sarah did a good job on your rehab, then.”

Anthea twitched at the mention of Sarah and mumbled something darkly about medical.

Mycroft, trying not to laugh at finally seeing Anthea discomfited, cleared his throat and said, “Edna and Peter are able to take down a trained agent whose trauma makes them unable to tell friend from foe…I believe one of the three of us would notice if James was inclined to be a threat.”

Peter cleared his throat, “Whatever he was to you before, James… isn’t a threat to people he doesn’t think are threatening him. He understands that we are trying to help, so he is perfectly safe with us–and that includes Mister Holmes.”

Anthea frowned, “What if he remembers?”

“Then we will deal with that when and if it happens,” Mycroft stated firmly.

“So what’s going on with this tiger business?”

Edna sighed, “It could be anything from having seen a tiger killed at some point, to having had a stuffed tiger as a child. As the brain heals from trauma, you get all manner of random pathways connecting.”

Mycroft nodded, “Tomorrow you will be arriving in the morning, yes?”

“Yes, we’ll just do our paperwork until lunch and then go on with our usual schedule,” Peter nodded.

“Perhaps you can help him look up tigers on the internet, or watch some nature programs? Assuming he wants to,” Mycroft suggested. “It should also keep him occupied while you work.”

“Oh, certainly! If he isn’t interested in tigers, we can have him look up something else interesting.”

Peter and Edna left for the night, and he called a car for Anthea. He had to admit he missed sitting with James in the evening, but he eventually simply turned in early.

He was pleased to see that James was better in the morning, although not back to his usual self. Mycroft reminded him that Paul and Edna would be here all day; he seemed reassured, but he still looked sadly at him as he left and mumbled something that sounded like “tiger”.

*

Edna brought up webpages about tigers for him on his phone, which seemed to absorb his attention for several hours. It was when they took a mid-morning break that they realized he had successfully navigated to several new webpages about tigers.

“That’s great!” Edna said happily. “Would you like to try my laptop? It’s a bit easier…”

They watched him as he slowly navigated around several tiger-based webpages, including one for a zoo.

Peter noted that he had fewer issues typing than handwriting, and that once he had discovered how to zoom in for size he did fairly well–although he preferred picture-heavy pages. Based on that, they did the reading exercises on the web and tried him out typing words instead of writing them: while he still had issues, he was clearly more comfortable.

Peter contacted Mister Holmes and asked if it would be possible to get James a laptop computer, preferably with a fairly large keyboard.

“Of course. How is he doing?”

“Very well. We are doing his reading lessons using educational pages about animals, and we will be asking Sandy if she can work with the animal pages as well.”

*

Mycroft had planned to be home a touch on the early side to cook dinner for a change, so he told his driver to stop by the computer store on route to his last meeting so he could head straight home afterward. To be honest he didn’t want to attend, as it was yet another tedious meeting between people selling their countries out and trading information no one could admit to having anyway. Anthea might normally have put up more of an objection to the delay, but one of the attendees at this particular function was both useful and an appalling misogynist. Anthea had already asked for–and received–permission to kill him the instant he wasn’t needed any longer.

Anthea didn’t object, but she looked at him in a resigned fashion as he purchased a laptop and loaded it with educational programs and other basics. She was just about to point out that they were running far too late when the security detail received the emergency recall signal. Some poor minion had to try to sort everything out and pay for things while Mycroft was essentially abducted back to his office.

Lady Smallwood–whom Anthea envied deeply in that she had arranged to send one of her male assistants instead of dealing with the meeting herself–called as soon as they were secured.

“We just lost all assets at the meeting. We had not even been certain you had survived, Mycroft.”

“All?”

“All,” Lady Smallwood grimly stated. “We also lost a number of security personnel, and a few unfortunate civilians were injured, but it appears the meeting itself was targeted. Someone got a bomb into position.”

“How the hell, Elizabeth?!”

“That is part of the problem, Mycroft: too many people knew about the meeting, many of whom are not under our control. We have no way of finding the leak unless it’s in our court.”

“We have to proceed on the assumption that the leak may be on our side.” Mycroft rubbed his forehead and got out the bottle of headache pills from his desk–Anthea grabbed his wrist.

“What?”

“Sir… Gut instinct…”

“…is illogical, but often the conscious mind’s only method of processing subconscious information. Go on.”

“I want your pills checked.” Anthea released his wrist. He slowly put the pill bottle down on the desk and raised an eyebrow.

“What’s going on?” Lady Smallwood’s voice sharpened.

“Ma’am? While any of the individuals–or the entire meeting–could have been the target, my job is protecting Mister Holmes. If we have a leak, we might also have someone willing to replace headache pills. I advise strongly that no one take any medication that could have possibly been tampered with, nor eat any food likewise.”

Lady Smallwood groaned, “Very good, Anthea: you are quite right.”

“As much as I hate to suggest it, Ma’am… Sir… I recommend you call M and have her put her people on it. If our people are suspect, a change in guards would be advisable.”

Mycroft nodded slowly, “I will discuss it with M, but that may not be needed. However, IF there is a problem in-house, then my pills cannot be tested here: I’m afraid I need to have them sent to MI6 to use their in-house labs.”

Lady Smallwood agreed, “The labs they use to figure out what on earth the Double Os have been exposed to can identify any poison. When is the last time you took headache medicine?”

“In the office?” Mycroft thought back. “Eight weeks and four days, I believe. I gave a pill to one of my security detail about six weeks ago and finished the bottle: this is a new refill. I have, of course, taken some at home more recently.”

“We should search your home.”

“That will not be needed.”

“It most certainly is!”

“Then we need to dig up your roses, Elizabeth, just to be safe.”

There was an extended silence and then, “That’s dirty pool, Mycroft.”

“Indeed. If it will suffice, I can have Anthea go over my home security.”

“Very well. Signing off.” Lady Smallwood hung up.

“Call in Miss Williams, please,” Mycroft said as he dropped his handkerchief over the pills. “Have her bring in evidence bags. I shall be annoyed about the scotch.”

“I assume Lucy is not suspect?” Anthea glanced at the door.

“If she fooled all of us while sick with influenza, and then after the rather extraordinary security review, then she deserves to be permitted to kill me.” Mycroft flashed her a brief smile.

Anthea returned a quirk of the lips and called Lucy.

When Lucy came in with gloves and an evidence bag, Mycroft had her sit down.

“First of all, you are not under suspicion.”

“Well, obviously not or you wouldn’t let me into the office with my gun. So what’s going on?” Lucy looked at the two of them, “It must be bad.”

Mycroft explained about the meeting, the explosion, and the fact that they were only alive owing to an unscheduled and personal stop. Anthea then explained the concern about people perhaps having access to the office, and poison, however unlikely.

“It would have to be outside the office,” Lucy said thoughtfully, “unless they could get at the pills with you watching, or they can actually break into your office… but… Where do you get your pills?”

“Here, actually. We have a small in-house pharmacy.”

“And they get brought up by courier? Like the mail?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think they probably could be poisoned.”

Anthea stared at her, “Why?”

Mycroft leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk.

“One of the other interns–I never liked them, so I admit I may be biased–often couriered mail and packages in the building.” She looked at them, “So did I, of course: what else do you do with an intern?”

They both nodded.

“So… he was getting kind of jumpy. I figured it was just that it was almost the end of his internship and he hadn’t been offered a job here, but then he died and I stopped thinking about him at all.” She shrugged, “Hewitt.”

Mycroft frowned and looked at Anthea, “One of our people died? Anything suspicious?”

Anthea called up the information. “The usual forensics exam for any of our people, but nothing suspicious: drunk driver hit him while he was bicycling. The driver confessed: he had priors for driving drunk and was sentenced to jail time and follow-up rehab–the usual. Hewitt was not slated to be hired here in any event.” She looked up thoughtfully, “He was working here the last time you had your prescription filled, however… Six weeks ago you said, Sir?”

“Yes.”

“Hewitt died almost five weeks ago.”

“Suspicious,” Mycroft nodded. “Full security review on him and on the fellow who hit him.”

Lucy sighed, “I kind of hope I’m wrong and your pills are fine and he was just a twitchy anti-social guy.”

“Your instincts about people have been very good so far, Miss Williams; please report it if there is anyone else suspicious you encounter.”

“I encounter suspicious people every day!”

“Make notes,” Mycroft said drily. “Anthea? Take the pills to MI6 and give M the report in person; I will be heading home; and upgrade the security on Miss Williams, and the two of us.”

“More?” Lucy protested, “I already have people hanging around my flat and my coffee shop.”

Anthea stared at her, “You NOTICED them?”

Lucy snickered at her, “Seriously? Straight guys who never look at my tits or ass? They stand out. I would have overlooked the gay guy, but he talks to the straight guy a lot, and eventually I noticed the suit tailoring for guns you showed me.”

Anthea finally laughed, “Well, at least they’re doing a good job; they’re trainees most of them, practicing on you before they get assigned up one level. I thought learning to ignore,” she looked pointedly at Lucy’s chest, “distractions would be good practice.”

Mycroft nodded, “Excellent idea, in fact, Anthea: my commendations. You should be able to keep them on duty–simply add a few of the more experienced people.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll call your car and then leave. I shall have to take a raincheck on that dinner you owe me.”

They locked up the office and everyone went their separate ways.

Mycroft went home with the gift laptop for James, musing over the fact that, in a peculiar sort of way, Jim Moriarty had just saved his life.


	7. Chapter 7

James had heard “He’s a threat” said in a calm voice by the armed woman standing by Mister Holmes’ side, and for a moment he was standing in a building looking across at a window… There was a tall man with dark hair in the window and Tiger was standing behind him…

_“He’s a threat,” Tiger said in his matter-of-fact voice._

_“He’s fascinating, Tiger.”_

_“I could remove him right now–great line of sight here–instead of placing these explosives.”_

_Jim had smiled, “I know you could Tiger… but it’s my game.”_

_The windows melted in the rain… melted into glass and grey… and he was in a grey room with a cold table and a glass wall, and Mister Holmes was standing there, cold–not at all like he was now–cold, so cold, and telling me he would hurt me if I didn’t give him what he wanted…_

Holmes picked him up gently and tucked him into bed… making sure he had his book…

Images flickered past, melting and forming…

_Tiger in a cell–almost broken._

_Tiger in chains, while I petted him and whispered to him as he recovered._

_Tiger following him with haunted eyes._

Mister Holmes got him for breakfast and helped him get into the better clothes that he’d bought him– _not what I was used to; not what I’d worn before_ –and tried to coax him to eat– _nothing but water and bright lights and the Iceman smiling coldly and asking if I wanted some tea…_

Edna and Peter Therapist showed him how to bring up webpages about tigers on his phone.

_That was important. There was a webpage… he had to find it…_

He was so very tired and nothing made sense. Edna Therapist let him use the laptop and he found a news page. _That was… wrong… the date? Shouldn’t it be earlier?_

He looked up magpies when they were done with physical therapy. _So very tired…_

 _The Thieving Magpie?_ He played it on Edna’s computer; she smiled, “Do you like classical?”

“I don’t know.”

Sandy Speech Therapist showed up and had him read about tigers. He got so frustrated: _It wasn’t right._

“What do you want, then?” Sandy asked him “We’ve gone through so many Tiger pages…”

“Tiger… Tiger…” He couldn’t remember but it was IMPORTANT.

“Maybe you want to read the poem? Did you like poetry?”

“Poem?”

Sandy brought up a page, “Can you read that for me? It’s not really typical but it has good sounds to practice…”

“Tyge, Tyger, burning bright…” James read and _That was it: I have to find it._

…

James looked up because there was a change in the sounds… _Mister Holmes was home for dinner? But it was… wait… it was late…_ He looked in confusion and Sandy was gone– _She left after I read the poem five times in a row_ –and Peter was gone… and he could hear Edna saying something about worried.

He looked at the time… _It was hours after Mister Holmes usually got home._

He looked up and… _Mister Holmes…. Mycroft Holmes… my friend... jailer… torture… helping me… killing me…_

*

Mycroft finally got home, utterly exhausted, and was met at the door by Edna.

“I sent Peter home, Mister Holmes, but I didn’t want to leave James alone. We couldn’t contact you and we were worried…”

“Oh, of course.” He’d forgotten the lockdown would… “We had an emergency and all communication was cut.”

“Oh.” Edna nodded. _Thank God for MI6 personnel understanding that._

“I’m very sorry; is James alright?”

“Well, no… He got fixated on a piece of poetry–read it over and over, wouldn’t stop–and has been obsessively looking it up on the computer.”

“Poetry?”

“It’s about tigers. Something just stuck in his mind. Normally, I would have tried to coax him out of it but I was concerned about how he would react when you weren’t home…”

Mycroft walked in and James looked up– _worry, fear, anxiety, horror, blank, blank, blank_ –and he made a quiet noise and fell sideways off his chair.

Mycroft and Edna checked him over carefully, but he seemed unharmed: he just wasn’t responding at first. Mycroft carefully picked him up and put him in the softer chair with his blanket.

“His book?” he asked.

“He set it aside completely once he started in on the poem…”

“Well, it should be nearby in case he wants it,” Mycroft nodded. “James? James, can you hear me? I’m sorry I was late…”

“Late? Yes, late…” James said in a very quiet voice.

“There was a problem at work, James, I’m sorry.”

“Did… you…” James looked up and he looked so confused and hurt.

“I haven’t had any dinner yet, and neither have you… Come on, we’ll both feel much better once we eat, alright?”

James nodded slowly and shivered. “Hungry… I was… hungry.”

Edna sighed, “We tried to get you food, honey, but you wouldn’t eat, even when we brought a sandwich over.”

“Oh.” James chewed his lip a bit and looked up confused at Edna. “Sorry? Who are you?”

Edna looked shocked and then very worried. Mycroft kept his voice careful and tried not to give away just how terrifying that was.

“This is Edna, she’s one of your therapists… don’t you remember?” Mycroft asked him very gently.

“Nggg….” James twisted and pawed at his head, which usually meant he was terribly confused or frustrated about something. “Edna Therapist… yes, but who ARE you?”

Edna went back to just looking puzzled. “Okay James, sometimes we don’t understand what you want: I’m trying to answer you.” James nodded and relaxed a little. “My name is Edna; I’m a physical therapist and brain trauma specialist. I work on rehabilitation for people who have had a brain injury…”

“Me.”

“Yes, like you.”

James eyes tracked slowly to Mycroft. “Who are you?”

“Mycroft Holmes… This is my–”

“–house, yes.” James nodded. “MISTER Holmes, not Mycroft Therapist.”

Edna smiled, “You are quite right: Mister Holmes isn’t one of the therapists, although he’s been studying to help you.”

“Oh… of course he would be confused.” Mycroft could see it–everyone else he dealt with had been a therapist. “No, I… am a government official.” He saw the utterly blank look on James’ face. “I work in an office, that’s where I go every day.”

James looked confused toward the home office. “Office?”

“Yes, like that one but… not here.”

“…and not Tiger?” James asked, which perplexed both of them.

“Pardon?”

James pointed to a spot not far from the chair–there was nothing there–“The NOT Tiger.”

Mycroft looked desperately to Edna who shrugged and said, “I don’t understand. Can you try to think of a different way to ask?”

James huffed and finally just said, “Hungry. Late.”

“Yes, of course James.” Mycroft sighed. They had sandwiches and some quick soup. Edna started packing away her laptop and James made a desperate whining noise.

“It’s alright,” Mycroft said as calmly as he could. “I got you your own, see?”

James stared at the laptop blankly as though he didn’t recognize it, but then he asked, “Mine?”

“Yes, like the phone.”

He looked up with an utterly bewildered look. “Why?”

“Well, Edna needs hers…”

“Speaking of which I do need to go.” Edna smiled, “I’ll see you tomorrow James.”

Mycroft saw Edna out and came back to find a very frustrated James trying to make the laptop work. He spent a few minutes explaining passwords and setting up the laptop to log into his computer network. James seemed to catch on a bit more quickly than he had expected, which went along with what the therapists had said about computers being easier for him than handwriting.

“Would you like me to read to you?”

“Why…” James was twisting a fist into his head again– Mycroft tried to be patient. “Why do you… take care of me?”

Mycroft closed his eyes and sighed, “That’s a very difficult question, James.” He looked over and James was just watching him quietly. “I care about you.”

That got a quizzical look out of James. “Caring is not an advantage,” he said in Mycroft’s own intonations–Mycroft flinched.

“I hadn’t been aware I said that in front of you,” Mycroft said tiredly. “It isn’t–an advantage… usually, it’s a weakness; nonetheless, I find I care.”

James chewed on his lip for a while and then his face went softer and his eyes caught on a picture of a tiger. He petted at the screen with a finger. “Tiger.”

“That’s a Siberian Tiger, I believe.”

James shrugged and then finally said, “Tigers are dangerous.”

“Yes, yes they are,” Mycroft said softly. “Humans are worse, though: that’s why there are so few tigers left.”

“One Tiger,” James said idly.

“Oh, there are more than that.” Mycroft smiled, “It’s not that bad.”

“One Tiger is bad enough…” James said looking at him very solemnly, as if it was terribly important somehow. _I suppose right now it is–to him, anyway._

“I haven’t seen any tigers lately; I don’t think they are to be found in London.” Mycroft smiled. “Let’s get you to bed, shall we?”

It was after James had gotten into bed and Mycroft was leaving for the night that James spoke up again, “Mister… Holmes?”

“You can call me Mycroft, James.” Mycroft smiled: James had rarely called him by name.

“My-croft,” James looked conflicted at him. “You don’t see Tiger. You never see Tiger.”

“Well no, I don’t see any tigers… Like I said, they aren’t found in London–except at the zoo… Would you like to go to the zoo?”

“…Yes, but…”

“But?”

James sighed and shook his head. “Good night.”

Mycroft went to bed. However poorly he was doing in other regards, James was speaking more–so the tiger fixation seemed to have helped that, at least. He was going to have to go in early tomorrow, and probably meet with the intelligence committee about the bombing. It would probably be weeks before he would have the time to take James to the zoo.

He should ask if Peter and Edna could take him; going out and walking outside would probably help his physical therapy…

He hoped that seeing one in the zoo would help convince him that tigers weren’t likely to be found roaming around London.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Security alarms and smoke alarms...
> 
> My Beta tester is currently dealing with an expensive car problem. All punctuation and spelling issues are my own, i will have it corrected and re posted shortly i hope, but until then....

Mycroft’s plans for a relaxed morning with James were derailed by his emergency alerts going off at five am.

“Antarctica,” he said into the phone as he started the process of kicking his brain into full speed without sufficient caffeine.

“Love,” Elizabeth answered. Her voice was concerned.

“Status?”

“Your house needs to be gone over completely, all medications and food stuffs examined, and you need to come in to medical and get blood drawn.”

 _So the pills were poisoned_. “Any progress on the intern’s death?”

“The driver who hit him died in jail.”

“I see. Very neat.” Mycroft wanted his headache medication terribly right now. “Were all the pills poisoned or just a few?”

“All of them.”

“Rapid acting or slow?”

“Death by apparent heart attack within eight hours.”

“Good, then I can take my headache pills here since they have yet to kill me.” He ignored her protests and shook one out and got a cup of water.

“My house is secured, I shall ask Anthea to suggest a secure team to do a sweep–or have her do it herself–and I will be exceptionally cautious. I could come in despite my arrangements for the morning.”

“Go directly to MI6 medical.”

“I have a slightly different suggestion,” Mycroft said as he thought of a way to salvage the day, or part of it. “I have an old contact with MI6 medical that I could have come here and do the blood draw. It would reduce my exposure and limit the information leak.”

“That would be better…”

“In which case, I shall work from home as planned, but will arrange to have the blood draw done while I am at home and no one needs to know anything.” Mycroft nodded. “In the meantime, we must assume I am not the sole target–you are taking steps?”

“Of course.”

Mycroft went through a shower–no point in trying to go back to bed, after all: it was almost time for him to get up in any event–and went downstairs. After a moment of hesitation, he decided that avoiding two assassination attempts warranted a bit of indulgence and he set up the ingredients to bake cinnamon rolls.

When the usual alarm went off, he went to get James, only to find him up, showered, and dressed–successfully this time.

“Very good James!” Mycroft smiled. “You’re obviously doing very well in therapy.”

James flashed that happy smile at him that Mycroft had so grown to love, but it flickered very quickly into a questioning look.

“Come to the kitchen, James, I decided to bake a treat.” Mycroft took his arm and helped him walk to the kitchen: he was improving rapidly; as they had said, he might only need a cane soon.

“Bake?”

“Bake: to cook using the oven, or more often to make pastry.”

“You… bake?”

“On special occasions.”

James tilted his head at him curiously, but allowed himself to be settled into a chair in the kitchen. He watched silently as Mycroft went through the familiar motions. He had gotten rather pleasantly into the habitual pattern of preparations and he didn’t notice at first when he reached out to get something only to have it put into his hand. He blinked and realized that James was standing quietly next to him.

“Thank you, James.” James just nodded.

Mycroft put the dough aside to rise and looked thoughtfully at James, “Do you want to help make breakfast?” Another nod. Mycroft considered what he could do that wouldn’t put him at risk, and finally settled on whisking eggs. The worst that would happen would be that there would be a lot of egg to clean up.

He got out an apron for him and helped him put it on, and then tried to hand him the whisk–only to find he had already picked up a knife.

“James, that’s… rather sharp…” Mycroft watched him warily as James carefully got out the chopping board and began chopping the usual vegetables for the omelets. He had obviously paid attention, but then Mycroft typically put the same ingredients in the omelets when he made them… After watching for a moment, Mycroft came over and adjusted his hands.

“Fold the fingers back, you almost had it…” He guided James’ hands into a rocking motion to chop the onion; he continued it perfectly once the motion was established. “You must have done this before…” Mycroft said quietly, with his hands resting gently over James’ until he was certain he wouldn’t cut himself.

“I… think so?” James said finally.

“It would be good if you could make your own lunches: you would be able to have what you like.”

Mycroft watched as James–without any apparent thought–flipped the knife to scoop up the vegetables with the back edge. _Yes, an accomplished and practiced cook–how odd. Well, perhaps no odder than my own interest in it._

“Three,” James said quietly.

“Yes, I am making three breakfasts,” Mycroft nodded. “Anthea will be here soon. Also, the therapists will be arriving early.”

“Anthem?”

“Anthea, my PA–the woman who was here before? You said she was scary.” James didn’t say anything else but his face lost most of his expression. “She won’t hurt you, James.”

He spread the filling across the pastry dough and started rolling it. James was intrigued enough to forget about Anthea, at least. He cut the sections and arranged them on the tray. The familiar noise of the security locks disengaging got his attention and he put a hand on the drawer safe…

“Sir?” Anthea called from the entryway. He relaxed.

“James and I are in the kitchen. Have a seat.”

He coaxed James into coming out and sitting at the table. He locked eyes on Anthea and didn’t look away, even when he lowered his head he kept his eyes on her.

“Apparently I still frighten him?”

“You haven’t done anything to gain his trust, my dear.” Mycroft looked at James, “I’ll be right back with breakfast, just stay here.”

When he came back James was staring off at a wall and Anthea was openly studying him.

“James? Breakfast.” Mycroft carefully patted his hand–James startled badly and looked back at him. “Breakfast.”

Anthea happily started in to hers. “He drifted off. Does he do that much?”

“Yes, when he’s tired, or stressed, or overwhelmed,” Mycroft nodded. “I did find out something, however,” he looked fondly over at James. “James knew how to cook–was very good at it, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“He helped me make breakfast.”

Anthea immediately poked suspiciously at the omelet.

Mycroft snorted at her and James looked puzzled and then laughed.

After breakfast, he took James back into the kitchen to finish the cinnamon rolls and make the icing, while Anthea started the security review.

Once he’d made the icing and put the rolls into the oven, James spoke again.

“Why?” James struggled with words, finally nodding toward the rest of the house, “Not Tiger?”

“Pardon?” Mycroft frowned. _I’m missing something._

“An… theeeeya,” James said with a frown.

“Ah, we had…” Mycroft tried to figure out how to explain it. “Someone tried to hurt me, at my work–the office that isn’t here.”

James looked puzzled for a while and then his expression cleared and he nodded. “Guard?”

Mycroft couldn’t help but smile. “Yes. Why don’t we go out and sit down until it’s time to get the rolls?”

James looked relieved and Mycroft helped him back to his chair. Anthea of course wasn’t here, being off checking security.

James frowned and looked around. “Good,” he said finally.

“Good? James, you have to use words–I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Security,” he said, careful of the “S”. “This is good.”

Mycroft couldn’t help but stare, and then he closed his eyes slowly as he realized… _Dear God, I’d almost forgotten he would have known about security…_

“Yes, James, my home has excellent security: it’s very safe here.”

“No Tiger.” He nodded.

Mycroft sighed, “No, James, even if there was a tiger loose in London, it would be unable to get into my house.”

Anthea had come past the door and stopped. “Tigers?” She glanced at James. “He certainly does have a thing about them.”

“He didn’t until recently, but at least it’s not a repeat of the issue with the peas.”

“Peas? What issues with the peas?”

“He spent a week screaming at the sight of them, and just as abruptly stopped.”

Anthea raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that usually broccoli, Sir?”

Mycroft laughed, “It certainly was with–” he managed to cut off before he said Sherlock’s name. After clearing his throat, he looked back at James, who was looking puzzled at Anthea.

“Well, at least he seems calmer about you,” Mycroft sighed.

“Guard,” James nodded firmly.

“Yes, James. She’s one of my guards–like Gerald? The fellow who took the nurse away?”

James got a wary look, “Nurse…? Is Nurse coming back?”

“No, James, she isn’t the problem.”

“He’s actually got a point, Sir,” Anthea spoke up suddenly. “If she WAS a problem, she had access to the house, and her behavior was odd.”

“I highly doubt she was that kind of problem, but…” Mycroft nodded, “best to assume the worst.” Mycroft looked at James and touched him gently on the hand. “I want to help show Anthea where some things are… Can you stay here with your laptop? Will you be okay for a little while? I’m not leaving the house.”

James nodded slowly, “You’re… not leaving?”

“No, just checking the house.”

James nodded, “Tiger.”

Mycroft decided it wasn’t worth arguing with his obsession any more than it had been over the peas. “Yes, I will check for tigers.”

James nodded and went back to his laptop while Mycroft joined Anthea in a security review of the house.

They were carefully taking apart James’ room when Mycroft swore suddenly, “The rolls!” He’d completely forgotten about them, not being a usual part of his routine. He raced for the kitchen expecting to find a disaster–half wondering why he hadn’t heard the smoke alarm.

Anthea chased after him. “Rolls?”

They both skidded to a stop in the kitchen.

James was rather covered in icing, so were the rolls, and there were rather large globs of it on the counter.

“James?” Mycroft forced his breathing back to normal. “Are you hurt?”

“Sweet!” James said happily; then he frowned at them. He hesitantly held out the bowl with the remains of the icing.

“Thank you, James,” Mycroft said, carefully taking it. “Did you get the rolls out of the oven?”

“Yes,” James nodded. “They beeped.”

Anthea looked over at the oven. “The oven timer beeped…?”

James looked terribly pleased and nodded.

“Let me see your hands?” Mycroft asked him carefully, and then relaxed somewhat. “Well, you don’t have any burns, good. Did you use the oven mitts?”

He shook his head. “Towel,” James nodded at the dish towel.

Mycroft smiled at him, “Very good. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, James, I don’t … I don’t bake often and I was distracted. Thank you, that could have been a problem.”

James blinked at him and slowly–very slowly–raised his head to look at the smoke detector; then he started giggling.

Anthea smiled, “I think I did my fair share of cooking by smoke detector.”

“Best not to,” Mycroft nodded. “Thank you again, James. If… If you don’t know how to do something, you can always call–you know that, right?”

James nodded. “You… security. More…” He chewed his lip again. “Im-por-tant.”

Anthea nodded slowly, “Yes, yes it is, but keeping the smoke alarms from going off helps, too.”

Mycroft looked around at the mess. _Well, it was just icing._ “Perhaps a break for some rolls while I wait for Edna and Peter to get here.”

Mycroft got James cleaned up and Anthea plated the rolls–and helped clean up the kitchen, bless her–and they were just sitting down to have some with milk when Edna and Peter arrived.

“Mister Holmes? You needed us to bring blood drawing supplies? What’s…” Edna trailed off and raised an eyebrow.

Peter looked thoughtfully at James–noting the residue of icing in his hair. “Did you help ice the rolls, James?”

“Yes. I helped. I got…” James looked at Mycroft, who smiled and gave him a brief hug–much to Anthea’s shock.

“James not only helped me cook breakfast–and is apparently a rather accomplished cook–but when I was unfortunately distracted, he heard the oven timer go off and got the rolls out of the oven safely all by himself.” Mycroft found himself biting his cheek to keep from chuckling. “He had a bit of trouble managing the icing, however.”

“Ohhhh…” Edna smiled and came over. “Oh, that’s wonderful, James.” She crouched down next to his chair and hugged him. He looked very pleased.

Peter looked like he might tear up, in fact, “I’ll want to talk to you about his cooking skills, but that… that shows great promise for him being able to… to manage.”

“Manage?” Anthea asked, once again looking at the two of them as though they might bite.

Edna smiled up at James. “If you can cook for yourself safely, and manage bathing and getting dressed, that means you can live on your own someday! Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Mycroft was expecting almost anything but the look of panic that crossed James’ face.

“What’s wrong, James?”

James almost threw himself into Mycroft, clinging to him rather frantically. “No… No…” He was starting to breathe faster…

Mycroft suddenly understood: _This was the only familiar place, the only familiar people, in a world of unknowns and threats._ If his home life had been half as bad as Mycroft surmised…

“James, it’s alright…” He took a deep breath. “James, I won’t throw you out: you don’t have to leave, honestly…”

James looked at him worriedly and Mycroft slowly detached James hands from his lapels. “I’ve become rather fond of your company, James. It would help if you didn’t need full time care, but I assure you: you can stay as long as you like.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ceylon Cinnamon is real cinnamon, the other stuff isn't.

John Watson sighed for what felt like the hundredth time and asked, “Tell me why we are going to your brother’s house during work hours?”

“Because he won’t be home… obviously!” Sherlock huffed as they got out of the taxi a block away.

John looked dubiously around at the neighborhood. “We stand out.”

“A bit,” Sherlock shrugged.

After walking for a while, Sherlock stopped and frowned, “Security is up.”

“Pardon?” John looked around: he didn’t see anything.

Sherlock got out his phone and dialed.

“Mycroft? What’s going on, your security has tripled.”

John watched Sherlock frown, “Of course I’m at your house. I came to drop off a report on the restaurant.”

“We did?” muttered John. “Could you have told me?”

Sherlock looked highly disgruntled and finally said, “Fine, it’s a front: weapons definitely and drugs quite probably.” Sherlock tilted his head. “Edna’s there early.” And then a moment later: “Oh HONESTLY Mycroft, you spend too much time with the goldfish–it was obvious. Yes, yes, we’ll head home.”

Sherlock hung up the phone. “Well that’s annoying.” He turned to go back the way they came.

“What’s annoying?”

“He’s home–assassination attempt on him at his office–and Edna and Peter are there early.”

“Good God, is he alright?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock snorted, but he looked distracted and was worrying at his lip.

“Sherlock… someone tried to kill your brother–it’s perfectly alright to be concerned.”

“He’s fine,” Sherlock said, looking more than a bit lost; then he put on that unconcerned look that John knew covered deep concern and continued, “Besides, it was a poison to cause heart attacks: he doesn’t have a heart, so he’s perfectly safe.”

~

Mycroft leaned on the wall in the other room where he’d gone to take the phone call. _God, what if whoever it was targeted Sherlock?_

He walked back in, putting a neutral look on as best as he could. “My apologies, I had to take that.” Everyone nodded except James who was slowly taking apart and eating a cinnamon roll as though it was the best thing he’d ever eaten.

“You needed a blood test?” Peter asked. “Do you need to be fasting?”

“I need blood drawn and sent to the MI6 labs.” He saw the alarmed looks cross their faces and continued, “Precaution, mostly.” Then he smiled, “But no, I do not need to be fasting so I intend to have a cinnamon roll first.”

James blinked at him several times and rather awkwardly put a roll on a plate and tried to hand it to him.

“Thank you, James.”

Mycroft noted Peter and Edna exchanging pleased looks, but he rather thought he would follow up later.

…

Once they were all in James’ room–it having the best medical lighting and access to equipment–Anthea asked, “What was the phone call?”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft sighed. “He was trying to sneak into the house under the guise of dropping off a report.”

“Well, breaking IN would be novel,” Edna laughed.

Mycroft smiled faintly, “True. In any event… Sherlock gave me a preliminary report.” He rolled up his sleeve and sat down on James’ bed. “This involves James, by the way.”

“Oh?”

He nodded at Anthea, who adopted a more attentive posture–taking notes in her mind as she put it.

“The day I discharged the nurse, and was home for lunch, James expressed unhappiness with the meal, and I concurred, so we ordered delivery.” Mycroft paused. “I handed him a menu, more to allow him to hold one and feel included than expecting anything–”

“Good,” Peter nodded, “including him helps.”

“He immediately called it a ‘bad place’. I was uncertain–did he dislike Indian food? Was he prejudiced? Did he simply dislike the logo? Or was it something else… I handed him a different Indian menu and he had no such reaction.”

Anthea looked thoughtful, “So you asked Sherlock to look into it?”

“Two words? From a man who most certainly is not a reliable source?” Mycroft tried not to shrug or jostle his arm as Edna finished up. “Yes, I asked Sherlock to look into it.”

“And?”

“He says they are a front for weapons and possibly drugs. I would like the place dealt with and all evidence gathered.”

Anthea nodded, “Yes, Sir.”

“Alright, done.” Edna had him fold his arm over the cotton. “We pulled for the full rack of tests. Do you want me to drive it over?”

“Could you? Anthea and I have to finish the security check.”

Peter nodded, “I’ll stay here and get on with James’ therapy…” He looked thoughtful, “Edna? See if you can pick up some cookbooks on the way back? Maybe one or two of the chattier food and cooking books? If James is interested in that, we can combine reading with… well, independent living skills.”

Mycroft brightened up, “That would be lovely, in fact. You have the expense card, I trust?”

“Of course, Mister Holmes.”

“Before you go… may I ask?” He waited for their nods. “You seemed very pleased when James handed me a cinnamon roll?”

“You didn’t ask directly for one.” Edna smiled. “You said you could have one because you weren’t fasting. James was following the conversation well enough to think that meant you could have one, you would like one, and then he gave you one.”

Peter shrugged, “I know it seems very basic, but that level of processing casual conversation? It’s actually quite tricky.”

“Hmm. Yes, yes I suppose it is–it was hardly a direct request.” Mycroft nodded solemnly, “Thank you–I’m afraid I take a great deal for granted.”

“Treating brain trauma makes you look at things rather differently,” Peter commented as they went out. “Some of the things you think of as very casual are the most difficult to recover.”

Mycroft drank a bottle of electrolyte fluid and waited until they were gone.

“You wanted to say something?”

Anthea sighed, “Since you are apparently taking after your brother in keeping dangerous pets… can I suggest you get both James and John microchipped?”

Mycroft smirked faintly; pleased that she was resigning herself to James’ presence the way John was simply assumed for Sherlock. “John is already chipped, as is Sherlock,” Mycroft noted. “Military identification at his level called for it, and… well… precautions for my brother.” Mycroft muttered, “I’d put an ankle monitor on Sherlock, but he’d just sell it or something.”

“Of course he would,” Anthea rolled her eyes, “or somehow use it to break into your office.”

“Precisely.” He got up carefully. “Shall we continue?”

~

James had had an eerie sense of familiarity when Mycroft let him help in the kitchen. He knew this… he KNEW it… it was like an image always just out of reach.

Jim picked up the jar of cinnamon and looked at it: Ceylon Cinnamon; that was right. He handed it to Mycroft and watched.

He could help with the food… chopping things was familiar…

Anthea, the not Tiger, arrived… She got suspicious at the food when she found out I’d cooked it–that was funny; Mycroft snorted at her.

Someone had tried to hurt Mister Holmes at his office? Jim had a momentary image of a building, and very few windows–quickly replaced with an image of the cell, and cold grey, and… he shook it away.

 _They were concerned about security here_? Jim looked around slowly. _They had windows, but… it was good security._

He told Mycroft that, and Mycroft closed his eyes slowly before he opened them and said, “Yes, James, my home has excellent security, it’s very safe here.”

“No Tiger,” he nodded. _Even Tiger would have trouble getting to him here, wouldn’t he?_

Mycroft sighed, “No, James, even if there was a tiger loose in London, it would be unable to get into my house.”

James frowned and worried. _Tiger… Tiger didn’t have to get IN…_ He went back to his laptop and kept looking for the right page, the one with the poem, and the right pictures. He’d been looking for what felt like forever, but he knew it was only a day or two.

Everything just took so much time… it was so hard, and so slow.

He was interrupted by a noise: _Oh, the oven timer._ Jim got up without thinking– _Why am I so wobbly?_ –and went into the kitchen. He grabbed the towel, pulled the rolls out of the oven and checked them… for… doneness…

_What?_

James frowned and slowly turned off the oven. This was… familiar. He knew how to do this. The pan was HOT and you used the towel…

He sat and stared at the rolls for a while before he remembered Mycroft making icing. He just tried to give it a stir and somehow it hit him in the face and…

_Sigh._

He was so clumsy now.

He iced the rolls as best he could, and… _I need this recipe, this is a really great icing… how had he made it? What was different?_

He was tasting the icing, trying to remember, when Mycroft and not-Tiger, Anthea, came running in and stared at him.

Mycroft worried that he was hurt, and was happy he wasn’t… Yes, burns… He’d burned his hands once, hadn’t he?

And Anthea wasn’t… She wasn’t going to hurt Mycroft; she was HIS Tiger… or something… so… she could have rolls.

Edna and Peter showed up early and… blood tests? Was Mycroft sick?

Mycroft was happy about his cooking, and told them so–he didn’t mention Anthea poking at the omelets–and they were all very happy about the rolls…

Edna smiled up at him, “If you can cook for yourself safely, and manage bathing and getting dressed, that means you can live on your own someday! Wouldn’t that be nice?”

 _On… my own?_ A very small part of him said that was a good thing, but the rest? He didn’t even know what was outside the front door other than… hospitals… people who wanted him dead… cold grey cells… water…

Mycroft… Mycroft had hurt him? Mycroft didn’t want him here? But he was my friend!... Where would I go?!

James tried to say something but nothing came out.

Mycroft slowly peeled his hands off and was talking, “James, it’s alright, I won’t throw you out: you don’t have to leave… I’ve become rather fond of your company, James. It would help if you didn’t need full time care, but I assure you–you can stay as long as you like.”

“Please… don’t…” _Don’t hurt me, don’t leave…_

Mycroft pulled him into a hug and patted his back, “It would help if you could make your own lunch and if someone didn’t need to be here all the time, but you can stay…”

James tried to paw away the blurriness in his eyes; Mister Holmes handed him a handkerchief.

“Oh dear…” Edna sighed, “No, honey, no one is throwing you out… We just want you to be able to take care of yourself.”

Eventually, he stopped shaking. Mycroft was telling everyone about how well he chopped the vegetables… Did he still want him to leave? Mister Holmes’ phone rang and he stepped away…

Peter and Edna Therapist spoke to him about breakfast and cinnamon rolls. He tried to tell them about how Mister Holmes had the right cinnamon, but he didn’t think they understood.

He came back.

Peter Therapist said, “You needed a blood test? Do you need to be fasting?”

_Blood test? Oh, right, he’d… was he sick? Fasting? That… that meant not eating…_

Mycroft said, “I need blood drawn and sent to the MI6 labs.” _Wait… Wait… that… MI6? What was that…?_

Then he smiled, “But no, I do not need to be fasting so I intend to have a cinnamon roll first.”

He was sick? But he could have a roll… Jim hesitantly gave him one and Mycroft smiled at him.

After they all ate, Mister Holmes said very gently, “We need to keep looking at security, and I want Edna and Peter to give me a checkup–”

“Are you sick?”

“No, I don’t think so, but this way we can be sure.” Mycroft patted his hand the way he did. “I am not leaving the house, will you be alright here?”

James nodded; he had to find the right page.

They left; he went back to the laptop. He considered carefully… _When the rolls beeped I didn’t think, I just DID… maybe I should do that?_

He went back to the search bar like they’d shown him and typed the poem in again–he could type it very well by now–and just looked at pictures… lots of… pictures… that one? He went there and stared at the picture on the top of the page…

There was a picture, like a photo, of a tiger, and there were strange shapes in the corners of the picture, like birds…

He stared at the webpage.

_Big words talking about hunting, and…_

Peter came in.

“What is this?” James asked him, pointing at the page. “Hmm? Oh, another Tiger page?”

“Yes. What… are these words?”

“Endangered Species,” Peter said. “Would you like to work on reading this?”

James nodded. They read about how Tigers were endangered and habitat loss… There was a story about how Tigers were kept in bad places and how they needed open air and to hunt. James nodded, _Yes, yes they did… they would die otherwise._ Memories of Tiger, broken and empty-eyed flickered in front of him, but he remembered Tiger being tall and strong, and fierce…

He asked Peter for water, and when Peter went to get him some he typed in the word that he knew was right.

Edna came back, and they had books… and food… and James was happy, but so very tired.

Mycroft assured him they would read those tomorrow, and they ate dinner and James went to bed.

He was safe here… and Mycroft wasn’t going to make him leave…

James fell asleep.

~

Sebastian Moran sat in what was an objectively lovely flat, with a beautiful view and tastefully decorated–he barely noticed it.

Somehow Mycroft Holmes had escaped the bombing.

Sebastian sighed and lay back on the sofa, putting his feet up and staring at the Kandinsky that Jim had loved so much. Abstract art didn’t appeal to Sebastian at all, and Jim having it hung in Sebastian’s flat was half a humorous dig, and half trust. Jim loved abstract art and this piece was hung where Jim could see it when he visited…

Sebastian tried to convince himself that his eyes were blurring from exhaustion, not tears.

 _Damn bloody Holmes couldn’t even give him a grave…_ Moriarty’s body was ashes somewhere–he hoped it was ashes and not something even less respectful–and Holmes was apparently immortal or something.

His habit had been to take a headache pill at least once a week–Jim had planned a contingency to drug him that way–and yet either he’d stopped taking them or the agent had failed. When it became obvious that the pills hadn’t worked, Sebastian had assisted a foreign political agency in removing their opponents–providing Mycroft Holmes was included in the list–and apparently everyone BUT Holmes was dead.

“What the hell will it take?!” Sebastian groaned. If Jim were here, he’d make some fondly scathing remark and tell him he was there for his looks, not his brains. Probably rub him behind the ear like he did and tell him he was a good Tiger…

Sebastian got up mechanically and went to the kitchen. He put together a sandwich and ate it, remembering Jim sniffing disdainfully at whatever Sebastian had been going to eat and somehow making incredible food with whatever was in the kitchen… or sending him out.

_“Tiger? How do you live without Rosemary in the house? And where’s the damn cinnamon?”_

_“I’ll go get Rosemary at the market, but the cinnamon is right–”_

_“Oh, God no!” Jim put a hand to his head. “Go to the store–the good one–and come back with Ceylon Cinnamon, not this crap.”_

And then he would give him a list of ingredients that sounded like an obscure joke, or a scavenger hunt, but it was always wonderful.

Sebastian pushed the remains of the sandwich around on his plate and finally just put it back in the fridge.

Holmes might have evaded the poison, and somehow evaded the bomb, but there wasn’t a target breathing that Sebastian couldn’t hit with a rifle.

Sometime that evening, as he was on the computer, plotting vantage points and possible locations, he checked in on his webpage. It was maudlin and pathetic and he hated himself for doing it, but he couldn’t stop.

_Tyger, Tyger, burning bright…_

Sebastian tried to read the poem and ended up just hearing it in his head the way Jim always read it, remembered Jim as he’d read this poem, and told him about plans, and how wonderful it would be…

He was about to shut it down when he saw a comment was waiting for moderation. _In a fantasy world, that would be Jim, telling me it was all a mistake and to get my ass in gear–_

Sebastian stared at the comment and rubbed his face hard. He looked again–it was still there. With shaking hands he approved it and started praying to a God that he had given up on years ago, when he was in a cell, in the dark, and had given up hope.

_I will do anything, absolutely anything, if that is really Jim…_

But who else would leave the one-word comment: “Magpie.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tigers belong outside... but what does that mean?  
> memories and confusion and spy cameras

Mycroft’s blood tests came back clear, although accompanied by the usual lectures on his diet; Mycroft ignored them as he always did. He was scheduled to work from home today, while they finished stripping and re-checking the office. They’d found a few problems–likely unrelated to the assassination attempt–and he would be unlikely to get work done in all the chaos anyway.

James helped with breakfast again. _Definitely an accomplished cook. Who would have expected us to have such similar hobbies?_ Mycroft had a moment of something like vertigo, wondering what it would have been like to talk to the man before, as friends. He shook his head. _Fantasy_.

“Will you come sit in the office with me until Edna and Peter get here?”

James nodded at him happily and came in with his laptop. He pulled out his blanket and settled happily on the floor.

Mycroft said, “I was thinking that Edna and Peter could take you outside… perhaps to the zoo?”

“What?” He looked worried. “Outside?”

“You seem to like tigers; I thought… there are tigers at the zoo.”

James blinked at him in that puzzled fashion and then his expression cleared. “Oh! Cat tigers, yes.” He nodded. “They are en-dange-erd.” He nodded again, firmly. “Habit-at loss.”

“Yes, yes they are.”

“The zoo? Is… outside?” Jim was chewing on his lip and Mycroft waited patiently. “Not… not hurt?” He frowned. “Not hurting?”

Mycroft puzzled over that for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry James, I don’t understand.” He saw the frustration and gently put a hand on James. “Let’s try again.”

James got that look of incipient headache and concentration and nodded. “What is outside?”

Mycroft froze. _He… he hadn’t been… Did he not remember ever being outside?_ “You… don’t remember being outside at all?”

James shook his head but Mycroft could tell there was something… “James… please tell me: what do you remember about outside?”

James stared down at his hands for a long time and then whispered, “Grey walls, pain, cold… people hurting me…” _And Tiger… Tiger hurting and following him with desperate eyes…_

“Oh… That… that wasn’t outside, James… that was… another building.” Mycroft closed his eyes and hated himself. He pulled himself back together and continued, “No one will hurt you, James. I… I was very foolish before, and I hope you can trust me that I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

James nodded and tried to put on a smile. “I know, you helped me…” _Conflicting images of Mycroft sending nurse away; putting him to sleep in the hospital; standing cold and amused. ‘I will ask again…’_

“I’m trying to,” Mycroft smiled sadly. “I’m trying to help.”

James shook the images away. “Your Tiger was mad.”

Mycroft frowned, “What?”

“Your Tiger, the not-Tiger, she was angry–she wanted to shoot me.”

 _Anthea?_ “My assistant? Anthea, the woman who was here?”

“Yes,” James nodded firmly. “She wanted me dead. You… you didn’t.” _He didn’t. If Mycroft wanted him dead, he would be dead… not… not being helped. Not… in his home…_ Wavering images of other places melted and reformed in front of his eyes.

Mycroft was turning phrases over in his head. “You think she’s… like a tiger?”

“Yes.” He was pawing at his eyes and Mycroft got him his headache medication.

“I suppose she is–like a tiger,” Mycroft smiled. “She won’t hurt you, she just… she wants to protect me.”

James looked wistfully at the computer, but kept pawing at his eyes.

“Here, let me turn the lights down until your medicine takes hold, hmm?”

“…’kay.” James sighed, and put his head down, curling up on the blankets.

Mycroft looked tenderly at James; it was sweet, but painful. _He wasn’t a pet dog, after all, but he wanted to be near me…_

 _The “not tiger” Anthea… All this time James had been trying to say she reminded him of a tigress… She did too: loyal and dangerous_. Mycroft smiled. He went back to work. Just before Edna and Peter were due to show up he had a sudden thought: _If Anthea was “like a tiger” maybe he was trying to describe dangerous people as tigers? Like assassins? We’d been talking about a threat…_

_Tiger meant… assassin, or… Double 0? And ‘cat tiger’ meant a real tiger?_

_The therapists had said that the mind formed connections and he was likely to latch on to things… like a child using a single word to describe whole categories of things…_

_Tigers… what were tigers?_ Mycroft thought about the stereotypes: _Deadly, hidden, graceful… Man-eaters… killers… Yes, you could use ‘tiger’ as a shorthand for words you didn’t have anymore…_

_Oh._

James woke up when they both heard the door. Mycroft touched the intercom and said, “I am in the office.”

After a few minutes Edna and Peter were at his door.

“Hello, Mister Holmes; Hello, James–had a nap?”

“Yes, he had a headache and I gave him one of his pills…” Mycroft shut his computer down. “I think I may have understood something that James was trying to communicate.” Mycroft helped James up from the floor.

“Ah?” Peter queried as they all walked out to the main room.

“I finally realized that he was referring to Anthea as ‘not tiger’… trying to say she reminded him of a tiger, or was ‘like a tiger’.”

James looked back and forth in confusion. “Yes?”

Mycroft helped him get settled in his chair and turned to the therapists. “When we were talking about the household security, he said ‘no tigers’… I think he’s using that as shorthand for assassins or dangerous people…”

Edna nodded slowly. “James? Were you talking about a REAL tiger? Or a person?”

James frowned and looked up at Mycroft.

Mycroft sat down, “We have very good security on the house.”

“Yes,” James nodded, “good security.”

“You were talking about a tiger getting in?”

“Tiger… Tiger probably couldn’t get in,” James said, speaking slowly and frowning, “might wait outside.” He nodded and chewed his lip, looking worried at Mycroft.

“Do you mean a CAT tiger? Like the pictures? Or a person?”

James looked down, and away. Mycroft watched him patiently, and he finally whispered, “A person…”

“Like Anthea?”

James was wringing his hands. “Yes…”

Mycroft looked up. “He’s using the term ‘tiger’ to refer to dangerous people. He said a ‘cat tiger’ when I talked about tigers in the zoo.”

James started quietly crying and Edna and Peter started trying to reassure him, “No one will hurt you honey–it’s safe here!”

James reached out and grabbed at Mycroft’s sleeve. “Don’t… don’t try to hunt Tiger.” He shook off Peters attempts to calm him down. “Promise!”

“What?” Mycroft was trying to understand. “James, I don’t go out after people… I haven’t been a field agent in far too long.”

“You send people… don’t.” James shook his head firmly, “Leave Tiger alone.”

“Alright, James, I promise… I won’t hunt any tigers.” Mycroft didn’t think he understood how very unlikely it was for him to end up dealing with assassins in any case.

James collapsed back, shaking.

Edna gave James a light tranquilizer and stayed with him while Mycroft and Peter got lunch together

Once in the kitchen Peter gently touched Mycroft on the shoulder. “I know it doesn’t seem it, but that was incredible progress.”

“Was it? I feel rather foolish for not understanding.”

“He’s gotten obsessed on tigers–tiger pictures; poems–it was easy to miss the nuance.” Peter sighed, “But it makes sense to think of assassins as prowling tigers–as predators. That’s actually… really good, and he understood the difference between a ‘cat tiger’, as you put it, and a person.”

“It seems…” Mycroft sighed.

“His mind is in there, Mister Holmes,” Peter said firmly, “and a lot of memories, I bet; he just has so much difficulty communicating.”

“It must be torture.” Mycroft sighed. They brought in the food, and found Edna showing him the webpage for the London zoo; James looked dubious.

Edna looked frustrated. She was hiding it well, but to Mycroft it was clear. “Is there a problem, Edna?”

“He says he wants to go to the zoo, but he doesn’t want to go outside.”

James shook his head firmly. “Don’t go outside… they hurt you.”

“No, James... that wasn’t outside…” Mycroft sighed and looked at Edna and Peter. “I was talking about a trip to the zoo and asked him what he remembered about outside, and he described… interrogation facilities.”

Edna closed her eyes in a pained fashion. “Outside… doesn’t hurt, honey.”

Peter came over and tapped at the computer. “There, that’s the zoo… that’s… outside, looking at the different enclosures.” He looked over at Mycroft. “They have live camera feeds during the day for the zoo: it shifts from exhibit to exhibit.”

“Oh?” Mycroft moved around to see James staring in wide-eyed wonder… at images of a zoo with people…

Mycroft gently suggested they eat lunch. They mostly had to keep reminding James to eat–his eyes never left the webcam.

Mycroft eventually left it to Edna and Peter to manage, as he had to go back to work.

“We’ll go to the zoo someday… soon!” Edna smiled at him. “But we have to work on your therapy right now.”

…

Late in the afternoon, while Sandy was working with James, Edna and Peter came to talk to Mycroft.

“Come in.” Mycroft looked up. “What seems to be the difficulty?”

“No difficulty, sir,” Peter sighed. “Just… you do understand this patient has not been exactly typical?”

“I never had any illusions of that.”

“James has made a great deal of progress.” Edna took a deep breath and gave a report. “He can prepare his own food, he can walk with assistance or a walker–he’s almost past using that–he can read at easily a high school level, and, while his handwriting is still terrible, his typing is acceptable.” She looked at their progress notes. “And I know he dislikes his voice, and has trouble speaking, but he can communicate.”

“I see,” Mycroft sighed. “You think he should move out?”

They looked at each other, “If… If he was any other patient?” Edna frowned. “I would say he should move to an assisted-living facility.”

“But?”

“He… is terrified of leaving, emotionally attached to you–and to Peter and myself–and, to be bluntly honest, we have neglected things that are usually done far earlier because of security concerns. He hasn’t left the building, for instance, and until he gets over his concerns about going outside…”

“Yes, I was considering that.” Mycroft frowned. “I hadn’t realized how restricted he was.”

“I’m not sure a mundane therapist–one not used to spies, to be frank–would be able to handle introducing him to outside, or strangers.” Peter looked a bit pained. “We should have done so weeks ago.”

“Then we shall have to begin,” Mycroft nodded. “I will ask you to avoid my brother’s habitual haunts–I’ll get you a list–and at all costs, avoid Savile Row and its environs.”

“We also need to get him reintroduced to money.”

“Pardon? I will certainly purchase anything he needs…?”

“I know that,” Peter smiled, “but he’ll need to be comfortable making simple purchases, getting change, all of that.” He winced. “More that we would normally have handled ages ago.”

“This was, as you both know, far from typical.” Mycroft nodded. “Do you think we could start with a limited amount of online shopping? Perhaps have him order books?”

“Oh, that would be great!” Edna looked delighted and asked, “Can you get a card with a fixed budget?”

“I assumed he would choose and you would…?”

Edna shook her head. “To begin with, of course, but he needs to go through it all by himself, and… honestly, it would be best to give him more autonomy. A budget and an acceptable store would be best… not… If you want him to be able to be independent, he has to BE independent–to practice.”

Peter looked thoughtful. “Eventually we will want to take him grocery shopping, but… markets are too crowded by half for a beginning.”

“I shall acquire a credit card, and some cash, for him,” Mycroft nodded. “I… It’s difficult; I keep worrying.”

Peter nodded, “It’s just like when he was re-learning to walk, Mister Holmes: it’s nerve wracking, and you can take the major risks away, but eventually you have to give him the support he needs and let him take those steps–the alternative is condemning him to a wheelchair for life.”

Mycroft followed them out quietly and frowned as he heard what sounded like unhappy voices.

Sandy was trying to sound soothing, instead of frazzled–it wasn’t working. “James, you… you can’t DO that.”

“Yes. Can!” James had both arms folded over his chest and was not quite glaring at Sandy.

She looked up, “Oh, thank heavens… Edna? Can you explain to James that it’s just not possible to look out of the CCTV cameras?”

Mycroft froze, mind spinning as he watched Edna and Peter try to talk to James.

“James, you can’t look through the CCTV cameras.”

“Can.”

Peter sighed, “No, you really can’t– Wait… He remembers London has CCTV cameras?!” Peter’s head snapped back at Edna and then to Mycroft. Mycroft and Edna both startled at that.

“Why wouldn’t he remember that?” Sandy asked.

Peter sighed, “He hasn’t been outside, really, since the accident–he didn’t remember much about the city.”

“Oh… Well, when I was explaining the live zoo cam, and then showed him some of the other live cameras around London… he wanted to see more… and…” She waved at a very stubborn looking James.

Mycroft came up and knelt down. “James?”

James looked at him and his expression softened. “Can? I’m… not wrong…”

“You are not wrong, James,” Mycroft smiled. “It’s POSSIBLE–it’s just not ALLOWED.”

“Oh.” James’ face fell.

“The places that have web cameras you can look at from your computer are places where the owners have allowed it.” Mycroft looked thoughtful and typed in a web address. “This is in New York City–there’s a nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons.”

“Oooohhhh…” James stared at it and reached out a finger to the screen.

“It’s possible to look at the CCTV cameras, if you have the–if you have a job to do that, but otherwise… people like their privacy.”

James nodded sadly.

Mycroft stroked his hair back and patted his shoulder. “Speaking of privacy, and… computers: I’m going to be getting you a credit card so you can do some shopping on your own. For right now, why don’t you choose some books with your therapists and I’ll pay for them.”

Mycroft stepped back and watched James looking through the camera at a small ledge in New York City. He knew he should be concerned that James remembered the cameras– that you could spy on people– but somehow he couldn’t be concerned, so much as hopeful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no matter how i tried to write this it came out jumpy... but sometimes real events and conversations do that, so... here you are.


	11. An Ocean of memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where am I and why?
> 
> (as a reminder my proof reader has been ill. all mistakes my own please do bear with me)

In the days after the message on his webpage Sebastian hadn’t been able to sleep–at least not well– hadn’t eaten to speak of, and had been drinking too much. He didn’t go out, just paced his flat and checked the webpage.  He was about to drop of exhaustion when another moderated comment popped up.

It was an email address and the order to delete the comment.

The email was for a James O'Cuinn… with shaking hands he sent an email chatting about sports and office work–the usual codes scattered throughout.

It took hours for a reply, and it was odd–but it had one of the confirmation codes, one of the ones Jim only used for him, and no one else.

A few hours later he got another email:

“Tiger do not hunt Mycroft Holmes. Avoid. Magpie”

Sebastian paced, that was Jim’s joking turn of phrase, always speaking to him in private as if he was a sentient tiger, using phrases like hunt, stalk… but everything about this was wrong and strange.

He replied: “Can I stalk him?”

An almost immediate reply: “he has a tiger too, hide.”

 _What?_   “Where ARE you?”

“London”

 _London? He was in London… he was nearby…_ “Where in London?” Sebastian started the trace programs, kicking himself for not doing it immediately.

“I don’t know. I will soon. Are you safe?”

Sebastian was having trouble typing with his vision blurring; he wiped the moisture from his eyes. “Yes, are you?!”

“Yes. I have t go, sleeping.”

Sebastian stared at the email and then looked at the time–late for a lot of people, early as hell for Jim… but he clearly wasn’t well, the emails were strange: they were Jim, they could hardly be anyone else, but they were written…like maybe his hands were hurt?  very few keystrokes…

Sebastian considered.  It had been months, he was obviously not well, not at all… had they broken his hands? What had he done to get out? And the order to avoid Mycroft… because he had… Sebastian sat up, he had his own ‘Tiger’ –someone competent enough that Jim was concerned he would be spotted if he got close.

It… was Jim… it was.

Sebastian sighed, it might just be his desperation making him think so… but… of all the codes, that one? One that was almost an in joke? And using those phrases?

_Please be real._

Sebastian lay down and fell asleep almost instantly.

~

James sat on his bed, vision blurring–his sleeping pills didn’t work as well anymore, but they did work.  Tiger was safe; Tiger wouldn’t go near Mycroft…

He’d ordered books, and Edna told him they would arrive tomorrow–he would have an address then.  Mycroft said he would have his own money then too, if the mail came.

He wanted Tiger, wanted to see Tiger, pet him and be sure he was safe… and Tiger wouldn’t let him be hurt…

He wished he could remember things properly.

His dreams were the ones he had sometimes, of a tall pale man with black curls, and something like Mycroft’s eyes– of a large echoing room, and the sound of water and reflections.  This time he also dreamed of a messy room–the curly haired man belonged there– and a rich office–Mycroft’s:   _I’ve been there… I’ve been both of these places…_

~  
Mycroft watched James stare at the packages with wide eyes: he’d chosen a rather eclectic collection of books. Therapy that morning was likely to consist of opening boxes and looking at books and games: the therapists were delighted. James hugged him tightly before he had to leave for work.

Because he did need to go in today, even if he  would have preferred to stay at home–working from home was always more comfortable in some ways, but a great temptation to  over much relaxation.

He was part of the way through his day, about to order a follow up on something he’d spotted in regard to the assassination attempt, when a piece fell into place…

He considered and called Anthea in.

“Please secure the room…” Mycroft didn’t know how to react.  He felt frozen watching Anthea go through the usual checks and securities before nodding to him.

“Room secured, sir…” then she studied his face, “Its James, isn’t it? What’s wrong?”

“…he was calling you my Tiger… he called you ‘not  Tiger’.” Mycroft almost whispered.

“Oh?” she puzzled, “well, he was kind of obsessed with tigers…?”

“He talked about what I thought was tigers getting into the house, and tigers waiting outside, and so on. He was very happy we had good security because ‘tigers couldn’t get in’ he thought…”

“Yes? I remember…”

“We thought … I thought I had figured it out. He called zoo tigers ‘cat-tigers’ and was very distressed when he admitted that he meant tigers as people… as assassins.”

“Oh! Drawing a comparison to… that’s very good actually…” she studied his expression, “You’re shut down… what’s wrong?”

“I was wrong.  He wasn’t comparing assassins in general to tigers–or perhaps he was, but not only that– he was calling a specific assassin ‘Tiger’.  He made me promise not to ‘hunt Tiger’.”

“Most of the good agents have a call name; several of them use tiger or some variation on it…” Anthea frowned.

“I think… I think he was talking about someone who worked for Moriarty.  We know he had  fail-safes and dead man switches, we’ve had to head a lot of them off…” _and failed disastrously to stop some…_

“You think… someone he knew as ‘Tiger’ is… behind the attempts on your life?”

“If they believed I was responsible for Moriarty’s death? They may have had standing orders, automated payments…”

Anthea went over what little she knew of Jim’s statements about tigers… “If he remembers that much… does he remember how to call them off?”

“He might, but to do so would be to reveal he was still alive.”

“Then we’ll simply have to get to this ‘Tiger’ first, right?”

“I am concerned…” Mycroft opened and closed his pocket watch. “I would like you to come with me and…I would like you to see if this makes sense to you–my judgement about James is rather biased.”

“I wouldn’t turn down dinner,” Anthea watched his nervous fidgeting with some alarm. “Perhaps you can talk to his therapists? At least about the idea that tiger could be a specific nickname?”

“He just got a shipment of books this morning–he picked them out– and I know they were expecting quite a bit of stress…”

“Then it will wait until dinner.”

~

Jim waited until his mid-morning break and sent the address to Tiger, along with a repeat of his warning to stay away from Mycroft. He wished he could remember more, but… Tiger was clearer in his head: hurt Tiger, looking at him with desperate eyes and wounds like stripes; Tiger strong and confident and lethal, prowling in a richly decorated room, in an abandoned warehouse, on a roof…

But when he tried to understand anything else? It slipped away.

And then suddenly, in the middle of reading about English history, and pirate ships, and privateers…

…Mycroft’s voice telling him about how much Sherlock loved to play pirates…

 _Sherlock, the man with the bright eyes and the dark curls, and the coat like a cape_. Jim cowered against the avalanche of emotions and memories: hate, lust, anger, fascination, people beating him, people jeering, drowning in a pool, Tiger’s laser sight, pain and shame and anger–so much anger– and Sherlock as a child and Sherlock lying dying in filth in a drug den, and Sherlock racing through the streets… and Mycroft always one step behind…

Mycroft shaking as he unclenched Sherlock’s hand to find out what he took, while Jim looked on from a camera–Mycroft kneeling in filth and crying when he thought no one could see him, when he found a pulse–Mycroft quietly pulling strings all over England and the world, _so did I_ , both of them orbiting around Sherlock– Mycroft wanting him dead because… _because he thought I was a threat_? _Sherlock_ …– Interrogators coming in and it was so much worse, and less controlled…

Edna Therapist and Peter Therapist and Mycroft trying to help… Mycroft cold and ice… Mycroft smiling over cinnamon rolls…

Jim came to in his room with the blankets pulled tightly around him and an ice bag on his head, and Edna’s voice making soothing noises.

“What… happened?” his throat felt raw… he felt raw.

“You were reading and then you started… getting upset.” Edna said quietly. “Eventually you curled up and were holding your head and Peter and I managed to get you into bed.”

“Did… did I hurt anyone?” he tried to focus: Edna’s worried face, her hair a bit disheveled, came into view.

“Just yourself a bit,” Edna smiled. “A few pieces of furniture may need repair and a few other things, but… they’re just things, dear.  Do you remember what upset you?”

A thousand answers ran through his mind and he picked one–for a moment it was effortless– “I remembered people hurting me.  I was reading… about the ocean: I remember… they… held me in water.” _Buckets and electric shocks and the certain knowledge that he would die and trying to breathe…_

Edna inhaled sharply, “well… that… must have been very upsetting.” She hesitated, “Yes, we think that happened, dear, some very bad people…”

“–hurt me… but Mycroft…Mister Holmes… took me home.”  _Why? Why would Mycroft Holmes… I’ve been useless, it’s been months at least, why am I not dead?_ Jim looked at the room in confusion, it locked from outside, for all that it rarely was anymore–when he’d first been here it had been very secure… and Edna and Peter…

“Yes, you were hurt very badly and Mister Holmes was very upset about it.  He brought you home and hired us to help you recover.”

 _The room was here–already here–before me.  This isn’t a jail for torture; this… was a secure recovery room–for a prisoner, but_ … Jim smiled as he understood suddenly; _I’m in Sherlock’s room–he kept escaping from rehab._

“Are you feeling better?”

“Do…Did I…” Jim realized suddenly that he had no way to ask questions that wouldn’t let her know how much he remembered, and he was still trying to sort it all out… he trusted Edna, but long habit and instinct  said to conceal his strengths. “My head hurts… my back…” he said quietly and then brought his hand up to his throat: _I must have been screaming_.

“You threw yourself around a lot and then were panicking at us… I don’t think you knew who we were.” Edna handed him a cup of water with lemon in it.

Jim shook his head, “I thought you... were them.”

“Do you want to get up?”

“Sleep? Just a little?”

“Of course, James.” Edna kissed him gently on the head and re-arranged his blankets.

“… and I didn’t hurt anyone?” _Why do I care?_   Jim turned that over in his mind. Edna and Peter Therapist… they were smart, and kind, and… they wanted to help… he pushed the question aside for later.

“No,” Edna smiled. “Scared us a bit, but mostly because we were concerned you were hurt.”

Jim nodded and curled into the blankets and shut his eyes… listening: the door closed but didn’t lock.

 _I’m in Mycroft Holmes’ house.  For some reason he took me home to recover after_ … the word  ‘unauthorized’ echoed around his mind, and images of a hospital and … people telling Holmes to get rid of him.

 _I have new identification, a new name, and I have been living in Mycroft Holmes’ house… Anthea… she was shocked when she saw me the first time–no one knew_. The fact that his personal guard and assistant didn’t know meant this was entirely off the books…

_Mycroft Holmes baked? He made cinnamon rolls, and kept the right cinnamon… Tiger didn’t…_

Tiger.

 _Yes, Tiger was likely behind any attempts on Mycroft’s life… Tiger wouldn’t be well…Sebastian_ , his name was Sebastian…

Despite planning to stay awake Jim found himself drifting to sleep, trying to make sense of it all.

~

Sebastian almost jumped on the computer when the message came in: an address… in London…a familiar address?

He checked the maps and frowned.  _That couldn’t be right: that was Mycroft Holmes’ house–they’d identified it as a possible strike point ages ago, but the blasted thing was a fortress_.

The realization hit and he fell onto the sofa.  _Jim… was being held in Mycroft Holmes’ HOUSE?  Somehow he’d managed to get access to a computer?_

It didn’t make sense.

None of it made sense.

Well it didn’t have to: he’d just have to find a way to rescue Jim and then Jim would make sense of it as always.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Sherlock... is Sherlock.  
> (do i need to mention trigger warnings for unhealthy past habits?)

John was rubbing his forehead again. “We are… breaking into… your brother’s house… because you want to know about a patient? Seriously Sherlock this is not acceptable. I AM a doctor you know? There IS such a thing as patient confidentiality.”

“I’m not actually interested in the patient, John,” Sherlock was using his dismissive tone that always grated on John’s nerves.  “I just want to know what’s going on that Mycroft has ANYONE in his home long term! He hates people in his space–he wasn’t fond of nurses and  therapists coming in when I was there, but he has verifiably had  them coming in daily, and staying for extended periods, over some agent!”  He looked delightedly intent, “not to mention the AGENT staying in his home! He barely put up with me!”

“I expect this agent is far less annoying.” John said drily.

“Well yes, but this has still been going on for some time….” Sherlock nodded, “and why would he take personal responsibility? And for that matter he isn’t letting anyone else know about it!”

“Do I even dare ask how you’ve found out this much? Did he come by with another take out menu?”

“Really, John…” Sherlock frowned, “Now are you coming or not?”

John debated. Seriously debated. Sherlock was going to do this in any case…if he went along he would be party to it, but he might be able to minimize the damage… but… the recollection that the patient might be seriously incapacitated scratched at his ethics.

“I’m afraid I have to put my foot down here.” John sighed, “If you were just going to investigate your brother or break into his house I wouldn’t mind, but… no. there is a patient involved: I simply cannot permit it.”

Sherlock muttered something about “be that way” and stalked out.

John stared at the phone for a very long time, before he finally sighed and dialed…

“Put me through to Mister Holmes, please.”

~

Mycroft was in a meeting–another meeting– when Ms. Williams stepped in with a note.  Ms. William’s figure was such that it adequately distracted the blathering idiots enough for Mycroft to see that John Watson had called…

“Miss Williams? Could you please arrange a bit of tea and some light refreshments?” Mycroft smiled politely at the assorted wastes of his time seated around the table, “assuming no one objects?”

Lucy Williams smiled and giggled obligingly. As Mycroft well knew the woman did not normally giggle, but it had the desired effect and he was shortly able to make his escape and return the call.

Doctor Watson did NOT call on trivial matters.

“Mycroft?” John answered on the first ring–a very bad sign.

“Dare I ask what my brother has done now? I had thought we were past any… danger.”

“It’s not drugs this time…” Mycroft barely had a moment to  breathe a sigh of relief before John continued, “To the best of my knowledge he’s gone to break into your house… he’s apparently fascinated by the idea that you are allowing someone to stay there long term… I did try to point out that your agent was likely much less annoying than he was…”

 _Oh bloody wonderful_. “Thank you for letting me know.” Mycroft muttered, “and yes he’s FAR less annoying.”

Mycroft hung up and dialed Peter.

“Mister Holmes? How did you know to call?”

“Oh dear, Sherlock got there already?”

“What?”

 _Oh of COURSE we have more than one problem_ …  Mycroft took a deep breath and continued, “Ah... I was just informed my brother is likely to try to break in to find out about my guest–as I said that must be avoided at almost any cost.” Mycroft took one of his carefully hoarded headache pills–brought in from his bottle at home– “what ELSE is the problem?”

“James had… well I suspect a PTSD attack and a resulting meltdown of sorts.  A few books damaged, he… flailed at us, but I don’t think he was really seeing us.” Peter sighed, “Nothing major damaged, although he did bruise himself a bit.  He ended up curled up and we got him into his room and tucked into bed–Edna’s with him.”

“Oh dear… and of COURSE my brother…” Mycroft started cursing meetings in general and this one in specific. “I cannot leave as of yet”

“You don’t need to.  Edna just came out, hold on…”

Edna got on the line, “Mister Holmes?  You don’t need to worry–he’s recovering very well… apparently when he was reading about oceans something triggered a memory of… well people trying to drown him, basically.” Mycroft heard her address Peter, “He admitted he didn’t see us, he thought we were… the people who hurt him.”

“Flashback, that’s what I thought.” Peter’s voice, “That… could be a good thing, toward recovering some memory…however painful.”

Mycroft interrupted, “how is he now?”

“Subdued, as you might expect, and his throat is raw from screaming and crying…” Edna’s voice gentled and sounded sad, “he was mostly being very worried that he had hurt us. He asked several times to be sure he hadn’t hurt anyone.”

Mycroft firmly pushed his emotional reactions to the side–the situation was under control. “Please assure him that I will be home as soon as I can, but… I cannot leave very early today.  As I told Peter my brother may try to break in–he must be kept away from James, at least for now.”

“Oh dear yes! Sherlock is quite charming when he wants to be but rather overwhelming even if we WANTED to introduce him!”

“Quite. I have to go.” Mycroft hung up before he succumbed to the temptation to fret any further. 

He went back into the meeting–Ms. Williams doing an admirable job of keeping everyone cheerful and distracted– “Now that everyone has their tea, where were we?”

~

Sherlock was sitting uncomfortably in Mycroft’s living room being lectured.

“– and would you like someone poking into your therapy, Sherlock? Mister Holmes tells me you have been doing very well and actually working in some kind of detective work, but there is NO WAY that you could  imagine that we would let you trouble a patient?” Peter was glaring at him.

He tugged at the restraints again. “It was… it was extremely out of character for my brother to–”

Edna snapped from the doorway–she had taken up a guard duty to be certain the patient didn’t come out in the middle of this apparently– “Then you can use this wonderful thing called communication skills and talk to your brother, but you are absolutely not going to be bothering our patient.”

“I had apparently managed to delete a few things about the two of you.” Sherlock muttered, “for all that I recognized the soap.”

“The soap?”

“Edna uses a rather distinct soap… I smelled it on Mycroft when he came to ask about the take out menu.” Sherlock admitted rather tiredly. “If I promise to leave will you untie me?”

Edna narrowed her eyes, “Unfortunately Mister Holmes is in a meeting and cannot leave early, so you are putting us in a very difficult position of defending our patient from upset or our employer’s home.” She stalked up and looked down at him, “Your brother was VERY clear about your privacy while you were here and I am extremely disappointed that you cannot extend the same courtesy to anyone else.”

It had sounded like such a REASONABLE idea when he had it… “Yes well, Mycroft and I are barely on speaking terms.”

Peter looked at him sadly, “because he insisted on getting you off drugs and you felt–”

“No! or … well yes that was  always a difficulty, but… he…”

Peter looked at him with that firm clear look he remembered so well from rehab. “Your brother cares for you a great deal: what could he possibly have done?”

“He murdered Jim…” Sherlock felt a knot in his throat as he finally said it out loud… “I just wanted John to be safe… and he murdered him….”

Edna and Peter shared a pained look and Edna came over and got down next to him. “Jim?  Who was Jim, dear…”

“Jim Moriarty… the most brilliant, and unfortunately criminal, mind I ever knew…” Sherlock found himself not quite crying on Edna–it was a familiar position: he’d alternately cried on her and tried to drive her away  during rehab.  “He… he threatened John and I just…I couldn’t… I didn’t know Mycroft would kill him…”

~

James watched quietly from the laptop in his room.  He’d slipped out and put his phone down with a view of the living room when he’d heard the fuss of someone breaking in.  He hadn’t expected Edna and Peter to come in with someone held firmly between them…

Or for that someone to be the black haired man from his memories.

 _Sherlock… Holmes… Mycroft’s brother… he was REAL… then… how much else was real? all of it_? He listened to a familiar baritone voice try to talk his way out of trouble, and snickered when Edna and Peter treated him like a particularly troublesome child.

_So he had been here… Mycroft had him here for drug rehab, and Peter Therapist and Edna Therapist had treated him… Oh I can just IMAGINE you trying to  pull your tricks on them…_

…and then Sherlock broke down… _because Mycroft had killed… me_?

He just wanted to protect John…?  _Vague images of  a man… a steady hand with a gun, reminded me a bit of Tiger but…_

 _Sherlock thought Mycroft killed me?_   Once again James tried to figure out why he was alive, and why Mycroft…

He sat quietly and listened as Edna and Peter talked Sherlock down, and un-restrained him… and finally had him call this John to come pick him up because he didn’t want to talk to Mycroft–yet.

They made him promise to sit down with Mycroft and talk… and he did… and … he probably meant it.  Edna and Peter were difficult to argue with.

 _I actually feel… jealous? Is that it_? They were his therapists although…I would guess in drug rehab they weren’t working as closely with him…

A smaller blonde man showed up–he was only allowed in far enough to retrieve Sherlock.  _John… Watson…?_   For some reason he knew the feel of the man’s throat under his hand, could feel him tremble in mixed fear and anger… he missed the rest as he looked down at his hands and tried to remember when that had happened but … nothing.

Edna opened the door as he was still looking down at his hands trying to drag back the memory…

“James? Oh... you’re awake?”

“Hello… Edna…” James couldn’t quite help the smile when he looked at her, even if it felt strangely alien on his face. _My voice still feels so odd…_

“Can… Can you explain?” he found himself struggling for words… thoughts moving at what felt like a sluggish pace but his words moved even slower.  Edna didn’t interrupt, just waited patiently.

“Explain what happened… to me?”

“You were hurt…”

“Yes… why… is it so hard? To think, to t-talk… to walk... I did before... I … it shouldn’t be so hard.”

“Believe it or not, James, your progress has been extraordinary.” Edna sighed, “Mister Holmes will be home in a little while, we can go over it together at the table… I’ll get some computer pages on brain trauma pulled up– you seem to do well with computers.”

It _was that late?_ “I… need a shower, and to change!”  He certainly couldn’t come out to dinner like THIS.

Edna asked, “Are you feeling stable enough? You have your shower seat…”

James nodded firmly and closed his laptop and started getting better clothes out–Edna watched him and smiled. “I know it’s hard, James, but…you can manage very well… and we’ll get you used to shopping and other day to day things…”

“I… don’t have to leave…?” he shivered. There was a whole city out there; he knew it, but…

“No, James, Mister Holmes was very clear that you can stay as long as you want to.” She hugged him gently, “We just want to make sure you don’t HAVE to.”

He went into the shower and held onto the support bar, and used the chair when he had to.  He dried off and wrapped the robe around himself and slowly walked over to the mirror–unbreakable…

He looked at himself in the mirror and shaved with the electric shaver… remembered suddenly the feel of a straight razor against his skin, and the temptation some days to let it cut a little deeper…

His hair was getting long again, and he brushed it back and remembered–somehow at the same time– a shaved head from the hospital, and the smell of styling gel.

He looked into the stranger’s puzzled face in the mirror and tried to picture… _no…. that’s not what I looked like._   He closed his eyes and remembered hiding fear under disdain, hating the boring drivel of the world, desperately struggling for power, and safety, and then… for something to occupy his mind, and keep the darkness from eating away at him.  He opened his eyes and looked at the image of Jim Moriarty in the mirror…

“I don’t think I like you very much… of course, I don’t think I ever did…”

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> never have that discussion on an empty stomach.

Mycroft arrived home sans Anthea: it was agreed that right after a PTSD episode, and with the possible addition of Sherlock, was not the best time for her to arrive.  Mycroft found himself dreading what he would find…

He walked into the house to find nothing obviously amiss…

“Mister Holmes?”  Peter helped him with the bag of groceries.  “Your brother was here, and is gone…he seems much improved…”

Mycroft looked around again at the relatively calm appearing house, “He was? err… I take it you managed to keep him away from James, then?”

Edna walked over, “James was asleep the whole time, luckily.”

 _Something was out of place._   He scanned the room again quickly and looked over her shoulder at James’ phone… “Was he?” he asked quietly. The phone was propped carefully on a shelf, half concealed by some books…

“Yes?” Edna frowned, “I’d put him to bed before we even knew Sherlock was on the way…”

“I… think… Mister Holmes… saw the…” James was properly dressed and a bit damp from a shower.  He looked unhappy and was struggling with the word. “…Phone.” He finally managed.

“Phone?” Peter looked puzzled until James walked over slowly and got the phone down from the book case.

“…Phone.” He nodded. “To… my laptop.” He looked at the blank look on Edna and Peter’s faces, “Camera…” then he smiled suddenly and waved the phone at Mycroft. “… He was… tied to a chair. Made him…” he enunciated the ‘S’ sounds carefully, “Say… he was… sorry.”

Edna looked stunned and then back and forth between James and Mycroft.  Peter’s eyebrows drew together and he looked pained.

“Did they?” Mycroft raised an eyebrow, and even as concerning as this was he couldn’t help but smile faintly at James’ open amusement. “Do... do you know who that was, James?”

James shrugged.  He had hoped that Mycroft wouldn’t see the phone and he wasn’t going to try to lie to the man, but a whispered voice in the back of his mind told him that it was perhaps... unwise… to reveal altogether much. “I remembered… a little? I’ve seen him.” Jim found himself looking down at his hands again, “cold.”

Edna came up and asked him, “Cold? Are you cold, now or…?”

James shook his head, “he was… soci…” _no_ , “ate…?” _no_ … “So…” _damn it there was a word, there was…_

“Associated?” Mycroft asked and when James looked up he found Mycroft Holmes standing very close in his suit, with his umbrella and for just a moment he was back in that room, with Mycroft standing there and the grey walls,  _“I will ask again.”_

Mycroft watched as James struggled with words, and then looked up… and his eyes flashed to that panicked look that he hadn’t seen in weeks.  Mycroft saw him track the suit, the umbrella, his face, and then back to his pocket watch pocket and start trembling.

 _Another flashback to interrogation? Yes. Sherlock is associated with that, of course_ … he carefully put a hand on James’ shoulder. “No one is going to hurt you James.”

“You… did, didn’t you…” James stood as best as he could against the onslaught of sensation and images.

“Not directly, no, but… yes, I was there sometimes.” Mycroft nodded at Peter and they guided him over to the soft chair–Edna came up quickly with a blanket and knelt down next to him.  “I didn’t approve… I wasn’t involved with…” Mycroft sighed as he tried to simplify a horribly complicated situation, “The people who damaged you: I wasn’t aware of that until it was too late.”

~

_James was shivering in his cell, cold, wet… he’d lost all track of time–which was the point of course–but the fear and helplessness changed in his mind to… I was laughing at them?  They didn’t dare harm me, they were… afraid of me? No… wary… I wasn’t afraid? Or…was I? They would have to give me what I wanted… they would have to…_

_What did I want more than being warm and sleeping and being home with Tiger protecting me? Why wasn’t I afraid?  I wasn’t afraid then… only when I remember…. Was it because I could think? What was different then... it HURT…_

_Flickering images of cold grey rooms and rags and water, and then…_

~

Edna wrapped the blanket more tightly around him, “He was never wrapped like this I assume, since it seems comfortable…”

Mycroft watched James’ eyes moving, tracking to nothing, and then stilling and closing .  He was shivering and… it was amazing the power of the mind: his lips were going slightly blue. “No.  Handcuffs usually, something like a straightjacket once but he escaped it and… err… restrained a guard with it.”

Peter sighed, “Was he strapped to a bed or table?”

“I recall we tried it a few times for his bed–it failed spectacularly. He was often strapped to a table… or something similar.” Mycroft didn’t like thinking about it, but it was so difficult to associate the James he knew with the Moriarty in interrogation.

“Then strapping him into his bed was definitely reinforcing the trauma and probably confusing his sense of who did what.” Peter nodded.

Edna had her hand on his neck gently, “his pulse is slowing back down, thankfully.”

“In interrogation it stayed remarkably steady under stress–until it didn’t,” Mycroft sighed, “I’m not sure it meant much.” He retrieved the phone from where James had dropped it to the floor and looked at it, turning it over in his hands. “Sherlock was here–and James was watching through the phone camera… I admit that possibility had never occurred to me…”

Mycroft got down the bottle of scotch from the upper shelf and poured himself a very small amount; he offered it to the therapists who shook their heads.

“We spoke to Sherlock quite a bit before his friend came to get him.” Edna looked up at him, “He was… quite distraught over Jim Moriarty’s death–why didn’t you tell him?”

Mycroft sighed, “Because…”

James spoke from his bundle of blankets and Edna startled badly, “because… it was… about him, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Mycroft nodded, “Basically.  You… had information about a terrorist action that we needed–needed quite badly–but you were obsessed with Sherlock.”

James looked up puzzled, “why?”

Mycroft pulled his chair over, “I was never sure why, I have guesses, but…”

Edna was staring at her hand and mouthing ‘pulse never changed’ at Peter. Mycroft smiled tiredly, “As I said his pulse remained very steady in interrogation, until it didn’t–I don’t think it means much.”

“But WHY?!” James shouted and then curled further into his blankets. “He was… he was in the center.  I don’t understand.”

“That was my baby brother Sherlock… and I don’t know why he does half the things he does, or why you were so obsessed with him… or what you wanted–other than what you told me, which…”

“I lied a lot.” James said calmly.  He was looking off at nothing again. “I remember… lying a lot.  I don’t know…”

“What do you remember?” Mycroft asked as gently as he could. “You… are not in trouble, James.  You have a new identity and money in trust for your living and care…”

Panic lashed through him, “You said! You said I didn’t… have to go!”

Mycroft was startled to suddenly find himself with a clinging James repeating that and shaking.

“You do NOT have to go, James.  It’s… very odd I think for both of us, but you can stay here as long as you wish…”

Peter said very firmly, “James wanted to understand what happened to him, and I think Edna and I– and James– all need to know a bit more of the background than we had before.”

“Especially why Sherlock thinks you had him killed,” Edna sighed, “when he’s been right here…”

“They wanted me dead… in the hos-pit-al.” James said into Mycroft’s shoulder. “I thought … when… Mister Holmes… put me to sleep… I would-n’t wake up.”

“How long have you remembered that?” Mycroft asked him as he tried to get James back on his feet, even if still helping him stand.

“Before…” James tried to remember, “Time slides… it moves… slippery…”

Edna sighed, “That’s not uncommon. You’ll have to try to find markers that you can  keep track of…”

Mycroft stood up and looked around the room, “well, we have a great deal to discuss, but nothing good ever came of trying to discuss serious matters on an empty stomach…”

“You had the right cinnamon.” James said quietly.

Peter blinked, “You mentioned that before, I think?” he looked at Mycroft, “what does that mean?”

“There are a number of inferior seasonings often labeled as ‘cinnamon’,” Mycroft nodded, “only one is true cinnamon, it is often labeled only as ‘Ceylon Cinnamon’–”

“Ceylon Cinnamon” James said at almost the same time. “Tiger…”

“Tiger was a person, I realized that finally,” Mycroft patted James gently on the shoulder. “I would like to talk about it.”

Peter frowned, “A person? I thought he meant dangerous types of people…”

“One Tiger,” Mycroft sighed, “James said that and I didn’t understand.  He always used the singular as well–it’s a name.” he looked down at James, “I suspect the man–or woman– behind the recent attempts on my life?”

“Maybe?” James shook his head, “I don’t know…Tiger…” James sighed, it was all so complicated and he couldn’t quite get it straight. “… Don’t hunt Tiger.”

Edna looked at both of them. “Then we have a LOT to discuss, but I believe that Mister Holmes is correct–something to eat first.”

“You used to cook, apparently,” Mycroft shook his head, “I was rather surprised to find we had that in common.”

James frowned, “I don’t know… I just… pieces, and I know… what to do.”

“Well let’s see if we can make something, shall we?  I stopped by the market on the way home.”

James put the concerns and the questions aside as he looked over the ingredients.   He kept having to hold the countertops–his cane was in the way in the kitchen– but Mycroft helped.

…

“Apple desert.” James said firmly half way through preparing the main course.

“We used apples in the chicken,” Mycroft frowned, “We don’t want to be repetitive.”

James snorted, for a moment exactly like Moriarty, “Har-mony.” He said firmly.

Mycroft nodded slowly, “Repeating a phrase or element over again in a different way?  Yes, I suppose.”

They debated dessert until James became frustrated, and by mutual agreement tabled that until the main course was cooking.

…

They had put the chicken breasts–flattened and rolled with seasoning and filling– into the oven and begun wiping down all of the counters when James started giggling.

“Yes, James?”

“I don’t know…” James shook his head, “But… I don’t think this is…” he smiled and waved at the two of them and the kitchen, “isn’t it funny?”

Mycroft blinked and looked at the two of them, in their aprons and he with his jacket set aside of course… cleaning up the counters and having just prepared dinner and beginning to make dessert… and a noise came out of him that he could scarcely ever remember making as an adult.

Eventually Mycroft couldn’t stop it and he was snickering, “It IS funny… the two of us, in the same kitchen… cooking dinner.”

James smiled and looked around from his chair, “I don’t know why… but it’s funny.”

Mycroft smiled and gently hugged the man.  Jim Moriarty…James…who was remembering  who he was, and who Mycroft was… sitting in the kitchen with a knife block between them and their main argument was over whether to make apple dumplings or pie.

 

 


	14. Discussion after dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Understandably i think almost everyone here has different views of the (canon) actions in the past, and the people in it.

James was inordinately smug as they brought out the apple dumplings.

“We had a pitched battle over it,” Mycroft intoned solemnly, “and James won, so we are serving his choice of desserts.” Mycroft suspected this was a dessert that Jim Moriarty must have made several times over; as he had continually insisted the recipe Mycroft found for them was “wrong” and made adjustments.

“It looks delicious.” Edna smiled encouragingly at James, “Do you remember making it before?”

James shook his head slowly, “I know I did.  I know what was wrong… but I don’t…” he gestured unhappily at his head. “Nothing.”

“The fact that you know you did and you could make it is still very good.” Peter nodded. “You may get more memories back but at least you can make the dish…”

Mycroft quite sincerely congratulated James on an excellent dessert, and Peter ended up asking for the recipe, which took a while with James’ hesitance and Mycroft having to hold back from prompting or explaining anything.

After the table was cleared and a post dinner drink–tea and coffee for the most part– assembled, Edna began. “James… if you at ANY time do not feel up to this, you just tell me and we will stop until tomorrow, alright?”

James nodded firmly. “I… want to know.”

“You had asked about why you have so much trouble, and things are so difficult now,” Peter  gestured at his laptop, “I did get some pages ready on  brain trauma  but I think…” he looked at Mycroft, “I think we need to hear a BIT more detail about what happened–certainly James does.”

Mycroft  braced himself for a conversation he most definitely did not want to have. “Well to begin with… James, you are quite correct: I was ordered to dispose of you–I did explain that to Edna and Peter– and instead I had you secretly brought here to recover:  Jim Moriarty is officially dead and James O’Cuinn has a quite impeccable paper trail.  While I am James’ listed guardian, to allow me to make your medical care decisions, you are clearly well enough to make some determinations on your own.” Mycroft looked thoughtful, “I found one of Moriarty’s accounts and had it carefully transferred to you, in trust, for your needs and care: you may be able to find more.”

James listened and tried to keep it all straight, “So I was Jim… Moriarty, but you changed my… last name?” _and I was remembering it right…_

“James is a common enough name, and I saw no reason to make any recovery more difficult by changing your given name–assuming James is your name at all, we never could back trace Jim Moriarty.”

Edna commented, “Well as you say, James is a common enough name, and Moriarty? There are quite a few variations on that name I would think?”

James slowly said, “my name was Jim… it was always Jim…I… think… I chose Moriarty?”

“Very likely.” Mycroft sighed. “What else would you like to know?”

“Why?  Why was I hurt? Why am I here? … just… why?”

Mycroft looked at the man he had been sharing his house with, his meals with, had grown unaccountably fond of…“I admit that I had…expected a rather different situation.” He admitted quietly. “Why are you here? It was a mixture of… hating to see such a brilliant mind  damaged, and not given a chance–when he had already made progress toward recovery, and somewhat hoping he would remember the information that he had.” Mycroft sighed and studied his tea cup, “And guilt: this happened while James was under my authority.”

Peter looked at James, and back: “Mister Holmes, you had said that James was on the other side, and in interrogation, when some people acted against orders?”

James nodded shakily, “I was… it was grey and cold… and Mister Holmes was there sometimes… not like he is now…” _He was cold, then.  Ice…_

“Some employees… became frustrated and were pulled off his case. They became angry over it and arranged to… deal with him off the books.  We found him injured badly– had him taken to medical. It took some time to find out who had done it and why, but it was certainly not part of anything planned or approved.”

James nodded slowly, “That… sounds right.  I remember angry, and …” _Fists, hurt, sensation, fury, drowning…_ he  shook his head and  changed the subject, “Why was I there?”

Mycroft fiddled with his spoon and his tea cup as he spoke. “The very short form is that Jim Moriarty was a known figure in many places.  He... fixed things, for a price–or broke them. At some point he became interested in my brother–interested enough to start risking a great deal of money and business to send him clues and taunt him…” 

Mycroft felt old rather suddenly and sipped at his tea, “You may imagine,” he looked tiredly at Edna and Peter, “how Sherlock reacted to someone actively giving him a challenge and a puzzle.”

“Well,” Edna replied drily, “he broke into your house because your behavior puzzled him, so yes I can imagine.”

James remembered images of Sherlock running, coat billowed behind him…”He was always running… except… when he was lying still…”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow at James and nodded, “Generally my brother is either bored out of his mind, or obsessed with something–there is little in between.”

 _Bored… being bored was horrible… it let the dark in_. James shivered and Edna wrapped a blanket around him.

“How did James end up in interrogation?” Peter returned to the original question after a glance at James, still shivering in his blanket.

“He had information on a planned terrorist attack– and he might have ended up in interrogation over that in any case– but…he had also directly threatened my brother’s… friend: John Watson.  Sherlock abruptly reversed his earlier stance that I was to stay completely out of it–it was between them– and helped us to… predict… Moriarty’s movements so that we could pick him up.” He sighed tiredly, “he also shared some–not all– of his information about Moriarty’s behavior and interactions.”

 _Pieces, a pool, Tiger’s red dot, voices echoing…_ “Did… I hurt him?” James frowned, “His friend?”

“That depends on your point of view.  Doctor Watson already had PTSD; being strapped into a bomb vest was apparently quite traumatic–I don’t know what else happened.” Mycroft saw the stunned looks on Peter and Edna, and noted the puzzled frown on James. “Do you remember?”

“I… knew him.  The man who came.” James shrugged and looked down at his hands. “I remember touching him… how it felt…but…” he looked up at Mycroft.  Mycroft looked worried, but _… he wasn’t going to hurt me_. “I remember Sh-lock– Sherlock– at a pool? And echoes of voices… and Tiger.”  James shook his head slowly. “It’s confused.”

“Tiger was one of the snipers?”

All James could do was shrug, “Tiger… a red dot… it was Tiger.” He curled against Edna and pulled the blankets more tightly around himself.  “I miss Tiger–he’s hurt.” _Tiger broken and desperate, watching him, listening to him… did I hurt him too? I remember… helping him?_

“He was hurt?” Mycroft asked but it was obvious James wasn’t listening anymore.

“He’s… probably too tired to continue even after he comes back to us.” Edna said quietly. “We should get him to bed, I think.”

They had a setback when they tried to put him to bed.  He changed into his pajamas as though he was sleepwalking, but…

“Don’t leave! I won’t wake up…” James clutched at Mycroft when they tried to leave.

“James you’re quite safe, you’ve been safe…”

But he was incoherently insisting that if Mycroft didn’t stay he would never wake up, and becoming more upset…

“I’ll stay with him.” Mycroft finally said, “You two need to get some rest…”

Peter and Edna exchanged looks, “we already called and told people we might need to stay with a patient: We can stay.”

Mycroft looked gratefully at them, “Thank you, I believe you know the guest rooms?” at their nods he looked again at the small bed in the room… _There was no way the two of them would be able to rest in this room._ “Come on then, James, if you want to stay with me, we’ll go to my room.”

James mostly followed him, holding on to him almost painfully tightly.  _How long had James known they were going to kill him?  He’d said it had been a while–unquestionably that would have added to his concerns and fears, especially at night…_

The room distracted James long enough for Mycroft to change into his bed clothes.  When he came back from the bathroom James was staring into his wardrobe…

“You wore this…” James said quietly as he touched a suit, “When you said… you would ask again…”

“Did I?” Mycroft considered, “Very likely. I… I am glad you remember, but I find myself sad that you remember that.”

“… remembered that… for a long time.” James said quietly. “Just pieces.”

Mycroft steered him over to the bed. “I have never shared a bed to sleep with anyone as an adult, although Sherlock used to climb into bed with me as a child… I don’t know if I’ll disturb you at all.”

James just lay down and curled up into a pillow and watched as Mycroft awkwardly got into the bed. “Do you need a light on?” Mycroft asked him.

“You have a light.” He nodded at the dim light in the bathroom.

“Alright.” Mycroft turned off the room light and lay awake as he usually did, trying to get his mind to stop processing enough for rest.

After a while James spoke up sleepily, “You… have trouble… sleeping?”

“Usually. It’s difficult to stop thinking.”

James made an agreeing noise, and then started speaking quietly; reciting the Tiger poem… and his speaking had really improved so much…

“Tyger, Tyger… burning… bright… in the forest… of the night…” James voice was hesitant, but clear.

_Tiger was a person, and James thought he was hurt? and he might, or might not, be behind the attacks on my life…_

“In what… dis-tant deep-s or skies…Burned the fire of thine eyes?” James was drifting and Tiger had such blue eyes… stormy, sometimes angry, sometimes desperate… they had been dull and then they crackled with fire and life.

Mycroft listened as James voice got steadier, and quieter.

“And what shoulder… and what art… Could twist the sinews… of thy heart?” _Tiger’s shoulders were a work of art, especially when he was working with his rifle.  His heart though… did I hurt him? I remember him broken and desperate, and strong and fierce... he wouldn’t… if I had hurt him he wouldn’t, would he?  I can’t remember…._

Mycroft listened as James trailed off and he fell asleep.

“Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” Mycroft said quietly, as he looked at the images in his mind of James, and Moriarty:  the man who didn’t remember if he hurt someone or not, and the man who had orchestrated the deaths of so many–arguably some of them at government direction…

_We always did use outside contractors when we had to keep our hands clean._

He had allowed himself to paint Moriarty as a two dimensional conscienceless viper– a useful tool until he became too dangerous, albeit with an admirable mind.

Now? 

He was a man who had baked regularly and knew how to cook well, who bothered himself with proper cinnamon and… he cooked. _I had never imagined Moriarty doing anything other than ordering out… why did he learn I wonder?_

He read The Saint… Read it enough that some of it was easily brought to mind even now…

So particular about his suits, and how he looked…

So worried that things would be taken away from him…

Afraid to ask for anything…

An image of Moriarty’s past as someone small, and poor: Mycroft wondered now about his comments that that other boy had ‘laughed at him’ _was he bullied_?

_He’d laughed at him…_

They hadn’t bothered to look again at Moriarty’s past after Sherlock had reported that… but that was a clue… he’d had contact with that boy… did they go to school together? But James was Irish, unmistakably, and sometimes had the accent to go with it, especially when he was tired…

The boy was English, and he was murdered here, in London…

Mycroft drifted off to sleep… puzzle pieces locking into place, next to James…who had rolled over and was tucked under his arm, like Sherlock used to do…

When he was a child…

Finding his first murder… his first murderer…

Jim Moriarty.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> difficult conversations, and observation bias.  
> Sebastian is too hard on himself.  
> (please bear with me, not only am i missing my beta/proof reader but my pain and stress levels have spiked lately which inhibits my own proof reading somewhat)

Sebastian usually moved with the deliberate nature of a sniper, but he was more than capable of a rapid response when called for… which was why the ‘visiting writer’ was already moving in to the Air BnB just a few short blocks away from Mycroft’s house.

While the third floor bedroom did in fact have a passable line of sight to Mycroft’s house, as he’d suspected, it wasn’t giving him a view of anything inside.  The line of sight would have worked acceptably if he wanted to drop the man coming out of his front door– and in fairness he DID want to– but Jim had said not to, and he was very likely being kept somehow in that house…

 _He’s not dead, that was the important part.  He’s not dead, so I have to stay alive and…_ Sebastian had to admit that he had been… less than careful about his own safety.  It didn’t matter without Jim, after all–all that mattered was getting revenge.

It had taken him so long to get this arranged with a reasonable cover story so he could move in without being suspicious.  Jim probably could have charmed his way in in fifteen minutes and told them he was a serial killer studying methods and they just would have laughed and had him in for tea.

 _God, he could sell anyone on anything_. Sebastian wiped a tear out of his eye, blamed it on the dust and lit up another smoke.  Jim hated his smoking–said it stank up the apartment and ruined your sense of taste.  He smoked once in a while as an affectation, but it was an act…

I think…

You never knew with Jim.

He finally got the specialty long-range lenses corrected to where he could see through the  privacy coating on the glass–good security on the house, even for that, and likely the glass was bulletproof, but he was studying not shooting…. Yet.

Most of the rooms on this side had the curtains drawn completely, although lights and shadows indicated that two of the rooms were in use.  The down stairs windows… were the kitchen?

Sebastian smiled sadly as he looked at what was obviously a very well equipped kitchen–even just what little he could see: Jim would love it. Far too many weapons in there for him to be allowed near it, of course; if he ever got into that kitchen it would be game over for Holmes–he’d already gotten some kind of access to  a computer despite everything, after all.

Sebastian watched the lights go off in the house, and curled up in a chair near the window to go to sleep.

~

Jim woke up from a confused dream: he had been a child again, hiding, and he’d found a warm place to curl up out of the way, but he’d also been in an office, with a man–Tiger?– kneeling next to him,  and in a warehouse with blood and bodies, and then he’d been in Mycroft’s home office on the floor next to Mycroft?  He blinked at the dim light and realized he couldn’t see because he had his head curled down into Mycroft’s side.

_Never pictured him in pajamas, I guess I always figured he hung himself up with his suits at night._

He lay quietly looking around the room for a while: it was… very Mycroft.

Mycroft woke up slowly, as he usually did if no alarms were going off–increasingly rare these days–and… Sherlock had crawled into bed from another nightmare… _wait, reassess_ … James.

“Yes, I’m awake.” James over emphasized the ‘m’ but it was otherwise quite clear.

“Your speech is really improving quite quickly.” Mycroft carefully moved his arm.

“Not good… enough.” James answered, “I… sound… stupid.”

“I assure you, you do not sound stupid at all. I work with idiots daily; I should know.”

James laughed and Mycroft smiled. “Now my bathroom doesn’t have grab bars–come to that I should have them installed for general practice–and your clothing is down in your room.”

James got up and reluctantly used his cane, and Mycroft hesitantly followed him into the bathroom. “I may not have a nurses training, but I was helping before… if you need help.”

“You… helped Sh-lock,” he frowned in annoyance, “Sher-lock.  He has a hard name.”

“I suppose he does; I hadn’t thought about it.  Yes, I have had to help him when he was sick.”

“Drugs.”

“That… as well,” Mycroft winced, “All too often.” And then he paused, puzzled, “You remember he had a drug problem?”

“Pieces.” James sighed as he saw _Mycroft kneeling next to Sherlock in filth, unfolding his hand and then leaning into a wall, tears in his eyes after the paramedics…_

Mycroft watched as James looked off at nothing much and his hand opened and closed slowly… “What do you remember, James? Maybe talking about it would help?”

“You… finding him, someplace dirty… there was a… paper? And medical took him out… and you cried.”

Mycroft stared at him… “Sherlock hadn’t been in that condition for quite some time before… how did you ever see that I wonder?”

James leaned on the sink. “I don’t know.” he looked at Mycroft in the mirror, the glass mirror that you could break and hurt someone, “just pieces.  I guess… he was in my room? Is that why?”

“He escaped from too many rehab facilities, and… frankly drove the staff half mad”

“Only half?” James smirked.

Mycroft couldn’t help but laugh, “A bit more than that sometimes…” then more quietly, “He agreed to rehab here, and of course neither of us liked it at all. I hired Edna and Peter to help, although they were not drug specialists.”

As they slowly went down stairs James considered, “They had him between… them, and then… restrained.  Looked practiced.”

“They have very high security clearances and… sometimes work with armed agents–like Anthea– who may be unable to tell friend from foe.  They are very good at taking a patient down without hurting them.”

James nodded, likely remembering how many times they had to do just that with him, lest he hurt himself, during a seizure or a meltdown…

Mycroft cursed himself for being a coward as he held off speaking about anything more meaningful than breakfast.  

James wandered the kitchen, lost in random thoughts and then would remember what they were doing and come back to help.  Once or twice Mycroft put a hand on him and steered him back to the chair.

“You don’t have proper oatmeal.” James said finally as they were putting egg dishes in the oven to cook.

“Don’t I? Ah, you mean whole groats?” Mycroft looked at him and James nodded, “I never had time to prepare them properly–in all honesty I have all too often eaten a quick breakfast on the way to work.” He smiled, “You’ve been very good for my diet, actually–far fewer hurried meals at my desk.”

“You just put them… in… in…” James frowned and pictured the thing, he gestured with his hands and started getting upset until Mycroft slowly closed his own hands around his and brought him back to the chair.

“Tell me what you see.”

“Big, oval, plugs in… put oats into it, with … fruit? And it’s dark… but it’s done when you want it.”

“A slow cooker? A Crock pot or Dutch oven?”

“Yes!” _that was it!_ “You put… oats in at night.”

Edna’s voice came from the door to the kitchen, “Very good–both of you.  If you can’t remember a word that’s the way to go about it.” she was smiling and Mycroft and James both felt rather pleased.

Peter’s voice came from the other room, “The way computer searches work these days, you can often type in a description and get the word, too…”

Mycroft cleared his throat, “well… breakfast shortly.  Shall I bring the tea and coffee out to get started?”

“That would be appreciated.” Edna offered to help and Mycroft gave her two cups of coffee and then James and Mycroft both shooed her out of the kitchen.

James said firmly, “Crock- pot.  You put the oats in… overnight.”

“Do you like rolled oats?”

“Yes, but … proper oats are … better.”

He sat and sipped his sweet concoction–Mycroft swore it was more cream and sugar than coffee– until it was time to get breakfast on the table.

Peter and Edna made appreciative noises, and James knew they were genuine because once they started eating no one said much at all until they were done.

Mycroft sighed, “I WILL have to go in to work today.”

“We can put off any–”

“James said… that he saw me getting Sherlock out of one of the drug dens…” Mycroft closed his eyes at his own memories that he wished he could delete.  

James’ hand slipped into his own. “He got… better.” James tried to reassure him.

“Yes, yes he did.” Mycroft sighed, “It did not help our already poor relationship, however.”

Peter looked pointedly at the two of them, “Neither did thinking you killed James, from what he said.”

Mycroft patted James hand and sighed, “I don’t think there was any good way out.  Sherlock was initially fascinated, as Moriarty set puzzles for him, but people were getting hurt, even killed. Even before Watson was directly threatened he was having, I think, second thoughts…”

James listened.  He didn’t remember but it sounded right?  “Was there… one girl?  Or two?”  James shook his head, “I think? There was a girl…”

“Possibly Doctor Hooper?”

James sighed and shook his head, “nothing.”

Mycroft nodded, and continued, “The incident at the pool… where Watson was threatened and so was he– directly, by Moriarty– changed the… changed the game for him. As far as Sherlock was concerned I suspect he was torn between  this having been the most challenging and exciting game he’d had in some time, and realizing it had… very serious consequences.  I’m afraid my brother has never been very good at consequences.”

 _James was standing in a building looking at Sherlock in his windows: Tiger offering to shoot him, I told him it was my game… fascinated, angry…_ “Why was I angry?”

“Pardon?”

“I remember…I was… I wanted him, he was… I wanted him, but I hated him.” James looked puzzled, “I don’t know why.”

“I’m afraid I don’t either.” Mycroft cleared his throat, “You… would only talk to me in interrogation; the others you toyed with, or remained silent.  And you always asked me about Sherlock: offered to give me the information we wanted if I told you about him.  You were obsessed.” He glanced at Peter and Edna, “And as I said, Moriarty had already lost millions and several–I presume– useful contacts in his ‘game’ with Sherlock.  I never did know why…but then I knew very little about Moriarty: which is why I couldn’t tell you about his life before.”

James stirred his now cooled tea slowly with a finger. “I don’t know. I just have pieces. Sherlock is... in-ter-est-ing, but… I don’t feel angry?  He was familiar, though.  Mycroft was, is, familiar… but not … the way he was.”

“How was he?” Edna asked gently.

“Cold. Ice.” James closed his eyes, “Closed.  If... I hadn’t seen… him ruin his suit, cry… all ice.”

“What?”

“He described rather accurately one of many incidents where I thought I had lost Sherlock… without more detail I can only narrow it down to two, but… I have no idea how he could have seen any of it.”

Peter cleared his throat, “Not immediately, but… I think it is going to be necessary to re-introduce James and Sherlock,”– he held up his hand before Mycroft could protest– “eventually.  James has memories–as he says in pieces– and you indicated that Sherlock was a major interest, however unhealthy.  It might jog more memories, and in any case… James?  I would rather you find out things that might be upsetting, or an obsessive focus, while you have people around who can help.”

James nodded slowly, “I… don’t feel…much? About him… but… I know I did?”

Mycroft considered, “You said you were angry, and wanted him–I would probably say ‘felt possessive’ of him.”

Edna nodded, “Typical of obsessive behavior.  I haven’t seen much sign of it in James, but… trauma changes a great deal.”

“Moriarty was a direct threat to Sherlock and anyone around him.  James… doesn’t seem to have any such inclinations.” Mycroft sighed, “As I said, none of this was what I expected.”

James didn’t know, it was all just so confusing. “If... I wanted… to meet him… I would have.  When he was here.”

Peter agreed, “Yes, you could have.  No one is going to make you meet him, James… I just think possibly going over what we do know of your past, might help you remember.”

“Like cooking!” Edna nodded firmly. “And finding out what you like.”

“I like books.” James shrugged, “and nice clothes… and…” images fluttered across but didn’t stay long enough to  examine: _knives, and Tiger, and Tiger with a gun, and Mycroft hugging him gently before he left for work, and an alley with someone lying dead, and  a pair of shoes, an abandoned house and an old blanket,  sitting at a restaurant and everyone was bowing and scraping at him and the menu didn’t even have prices, Sherlock running with his coat billowing out, feeding a Raven in a park, Sherlock playing violin, the sound of a piano, sitting in a tree where no one could find him and eating an apple…._

James rubbed at his head, “too much, and pieces.”

“Do you need your headache medicine, James?”

James nodded and discussion stopped while they got him settled in a chair with his blanket until he felt better.

“I do have to go in to work,” Mycroft apologized, “but I will try to be home at least on time.”

“It will be fine, Mister Holmes,” Edna nodded, “We’ll manage.”

~

Sebastian watched as Mycroft left his house and got into the car to go to work: his hands itched to pull the trigger. He was still cursing the privacy glazes on the windows–even with the best optics they had he couldn’t see very clearly, but…

_That had been Jim._

Jim in the kitchen, with Mycroft Holmes.  He had moved slowly and clumsily, not at all with Jim’s usual style, and Holmes had constantly taken him back out of view, but it was Jim.

He was heavily drugged, that much was obvious by the way he moved and the way he  allowed himself to be steered around–by anyone, much less Holmes.  It explained a lot about his communication, really–his hands might have been damaged or he might just be so zoned on something that he could barely type.

There had been two shadows and lights in two rooms last night, and a car was still there that in no way belonged to Holmes– _guards? Specialists?_

Sebastian sent the plate to one of their contacts to run for information with a warning that it was likely flagged, and then sent a message to Jim–coded of course.  If Jim didn’t answer soon, or correctly, then he would have to assume that he wasn’t able to, and go ahead and pull him out.

 


	16. Sherlock and John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock...is Sherlock.  
> (TW for discussions of suicide)

Sherlock hadn’t said much on the way home. Then he had poked at his food and gone into his room–which was unusual: in John’s opinion he usually moped or sulked on the couch.  When he didn’t come down in the morning John knocked.

“What is it, John.”  Sherlock’s voice was flat and tired.

“I’m sorry I called Mycroft… well I’m not sorry, but I’m sorry I had to… You obviously didn’t get to bother that poor patient, but–”

The door opened and Sherlock walked out, looking like he hadn’t slept a wink, still in his clothes… “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Err… what doesn’t?”

“What I saw, what I… deduced.  I… have to be wrong.”

John froze in place. _Sherlock?  Saying he didn’t trust his own deductions?_   By the time he could react Sherlock had moved to the sofa.

“Tea.”

John moved slowly into the kitchen and made tea. _Sherlock? Doubting his… what the HELL?_

He came out with tea and a bit of light breakfast and set it down. “Sherlock?  You…” he cleared his throat, “That’s… not normal for you… would it… would it help to talk about it?”

“Edna and Peter found me before I got very far…”

“They seemed nice…”

“They… are… I suppose.  My opinions about them are rather biased.” Sherlock waved that off, “They eventually untied me.”

“Untied you?” John blinked and … well this was familiar at least: he felt like he was missing half the information he needed.

“They were very upset that I was going to bother their patient.  They… acted as though he was very fragile.”

“Head trauma based on what Mycroft said…”

“It… doesn’t make sense.” Sherlock was turning a cup in his hands.

“Tea does you more good if you drink it, you know.”

“John… as a doctor… what KIND of damage could cause the kind… what Mycroft talked about: knowing that a restaurant was a ‘bad place’ but being unable to explain why…”

John sighed and sat back, “he was an agent, Mycroft said.”

“That…may be close enough.”

“Well, a number of drugs… head trauma, severe psychosis…”

“I have reason to…” Sherlock’s hands shook faintly and he  quietly ate  a bit and sipped his tea and then  when he looked up he was Sherlock on a case again: cool, intent, focused. “I have reason to believe he was in interrogation: could that do it?”

“Depending on who’s running it? How careful they are, or aren’t? People die under interrogation, Sherlock.” John considered, “heart attack or stroke, of course… which can be caused by any number of things–that could cause brain damage.  The drugs used in interrogation can cause all sorts of problems, depending on who’s using what drugs, and… how they react to it.  Drowning, or near drowning if it’s not managed carefully…” John was lost in his past, thinking about people he’d treated, people they pulled out, rumors he’d heard about their own side.

Sherlock sat very quietly, waiting until John’s eyes focused on his again.

“Could it happen… accidentally?”

“Well, it’s more likely to be accidental.” John answered, puzzled, “I mean, you don’t get answers if you damage their brain.”

“Ah… but there is a lot that could… happen… that could cause that kind of accident?”

“Sherlock,” John sighed, “Brain damage can… can just happen.  He could have been rescued from interrogation, and then had a stroke in surgery… and… well…”

“Well?” Sherlock arched an eyebrow at him.

“He could have tried to commit suicide: either to escape being tortured or afterwards… from… from PTSD.” John’s hand shook just slightly as he picked up his tea cup. “Failed suicide attempt can do that.  It’s… one of the reasons I hesitated.”

Sherlock snapped completely out of whatever had absorbed him and was suddenly over on his knees with his hands on John. “Never… never even think about that.  I would be lost without you… no matter WHAT happens never….”

John startled badly and then patted Sherlock’s hands awkwardly, “That was before I met you, Sherlock.  I … I didn’t think I had a lot to live for.  Things are much better now.”

“Promise me.” Sherlock stood up and loomed at him. “Promise me that no matter what happens, John, no matter how bad things seem, you will keep on going: promise me.”

John stood up slowly, “I promise if you promise.”

John saw the minute flinch, but then Sherlock seemed to steel himself, “I will NEVER give up, John. I won’t tell you I will never take risks, even risks that might lead to… that might be very dangerous, but I will never give up. I promise.”

“Then neither will I… and I think we both take  rather extreme risks…I promise.”  John steered Sherlock back to his chair.

“Now tell me what the HELL has you all wound up and doubting your own deductions?” John sat down and waited.

“It… might upset you.”

“Might.” John allowed, “But being kept in the dark upsets me worse.”

Sherlock tapped his fingers together and finally said, “I am quite serious…the… the deductions seem very nearly impossible.”

“What is it you’ve said about  that before? Besides, very nearly isn’t definitely…”

“There were signs that the kitchen has been extensively used…”

“Well, wouldn’t they?”

“By Mycroft. He’s cooking again.”

“He cooks?”

“Baking especially was a hobby, and… well it often led to struggles with his weight. “

“Well with other people to eat it, maybe its… helping him to stay settled?” John muttered, “Not that I can picture him UNsettled.”

“He was unsettled when he came here with the menu… I know you can’t tell, but he was concealing things from me–shutting himself off to make himself hard to read.”

“Is that why you suddenly got so intrigued?”

“Yes.” Sherlock waved a hand, “I noticed some less usual ingredients in his kitchen and then I was captured and … taken into the living room.” Sherlock sighed, “Edna and Peter are… very good at what they do, but they are not Mycroft.”

“…they gave something away?”

“They gave a lot away, in pieces and… unintentionally.” Sherlock sighed, “There were books out that did NOT belong to Mycroft, many in large print–some workbooks on handwriting, a number of books on topics he simply has never shown an interest in…”

“For the patient.” John nodded.

“Yes.”

“Hand writing?  Did any of the books look like… reading  workbooks?”

Sherlock looked distant for a moment, “one… but many were books that covered complex topics at… simpler levels.”

“Head trauma or stroke and rehab then… which … I would expect.” John nodded.

“The topics told me a lot…” Sherlock sighed. “Some of the books… were books I think could have been Mycroft’s but they were obviously new.”

“Nothing I wouldn’t expect so far.” John considered, “and nothing upsetting to me personally.”

“There was a cell phone aimed into the room, tucked away on a book case somewhat out of sight. I believe it was recording.”

“So…” John frowned, “Mycroft loved recording–wait… he wouldn’t need to do that…”

Sherlock snorted and drily commented, “Very good John, you are capable of thinking when you bother. No, he wouldn’t– not in his own house, certainly, and hardly anywhere: he has access to far better cameras and bugs–as we know.”

“You… think the patient?”

“They were clearly trying to keep me from going… toward his room.” Sherlock sighed, “I think while they were detaining me he left his phone there– to find out what was going on.”

“Well, he was a spy, wasn’t he?  That’s probably almost second nature.”

“He wasn’t a spy, but yes.”

“He… wasn’t?”

“Not if I’m right…” Sherlock sighed, “I need to go think.  It doesn’t make sense.” He started to get up.

“Woah!” John stood up and crossed his arms. “You said you would explain this to me, and that I would be upset… now you just try to walk off?” John shook his head.

“I don’t want to upset you.” Sherlock sighed, “especially since it seems… so impossible.”

“So far, nothing even sounds that unusual, much less impossible!” john hesitated and then sank back into his chair. “Damn I have gotten too used to you and all this when this seems usual…”

Sherlock got up slowly and walked over to his skull. “When you have eliminated…”

“The impossible, whatever left, however improbable…” John smiled and walked over, “must be the truth, right?”

“You were listening,” Sherlock sighed, “But there is also a true axiom that the SIMPLEST possible explanation is often the truth… and… I am being…perhaps I merely want this answer to be true, no matter how nonsensical.”

“What?!” John waved a hand at him, “Seriously, Sherlock, you are pissing me off here… you keep saying I’ll be upset, but…”

“You are upset; I don’t want you to be MORE upset.”

“So TALK…!”

“…I confessed that I was… angry and upset at Mycroft for killing Moriarty.”

“Oh God, not that again?  He died in…” John paled and Sherlock had to grab his elbow.

“Interrogation, John. He died in interrogation.” Sherlock said softly “… and certainly there is no reasonable possibility to think that a man Mycroft is DETERMINED not to let me see, who he has been keeping in his house, with private nurses, who apparently likes apples, and knew about a smuggling operation connected to Moriarty…is Jim Moriarty.”

Sherlock got John sat down on the couch, where he mostly sat and stared ahead  until Sherlock pressed a tea cup into his hands.

“Very… unlikely…” John managed to get out.

“When I mentioned his name, Edna and Peter reacted–it was subtle, but they did– and Peter looked at the workbooks… I think he may have mouthed the word ‘James’ but I’m not certain.” Sherlock sighed and sat down next to John, staring up at the ceiling. “And they very deliberately started probing at what I thought or knew about Jim Moriarty–Edna especially.  It could be taken as letting me talk it out… but I …it’s… not impossible, is it?”

“…but why…?” John could smell the chlorine, feel the weight of the vest, see those eyes boring into his in the back room when he’d woken up, feel the hand around his throat….

“I don’t know.”


	17. Sight Lines of Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take out and order in...

Jim rested for a while, memories–or images anyway– fluttering by: he pieced a few more together but the rest?  Was the specific car important? Why? There was a girl he liked, and a girl he didn’t like, and they both had dark hair, but he didn’t remember who they were or why he felt that way. The letters I, O, and U kept coming up… painted on walls and carved into… apples? Men with brown hair, and easy smiles, and one of them was…dangerous? And one was dead…

“James?” Edna touched him on the shoulder and Jim blinked back to Mycroft’s home.

“Yes, Edna?”

“Peter thought you might like to try take-out for lunch, would you like to look at the menus?”

 _It’s part of getting me used to making decisions again_ , Jim realized, _they’re serious about… about helping–even Mycroft…_ “Yes… please…”  _why was it ‘even Mycroft’?_ he considered: _because he … he had been protecting Sherlock from me, and he– he hurt me, but…he wanted me to get better…_

Peter cleared his throat, “James? If you aren’t up to looking at the menus, I can pick…”

“Oh, sorry… trying… to think.” Jim sighed and took the menus and spread them out, frowning. “Why… they all…” he puffed air out angrily, they all used such strange fonts it made it hard to read.

“Why what, James?”

“Stupid fonts.” Jim grumbled.

Edna and Peter stared at each other, “Oh.” Edna looked at the menus and back, “Yes that would make it difficult.  That’s the correct word, though. Do you need me to read them?”

“No…” Jim picked one out, “We had this one…” and he  looked over the rest, images of  plans, and computer pages, printouts and… string? “This!… I had… this… this is good.”

Peter stared at it, “Did you? That’s a gourmet market–it’s a bit further away…”

“They have the right… cinnamon.” James sighed and picked up a pencil, circling three things carefully. “I like this... I think?”

The door opened and Sandy Speech Therapist’s voice called out a cheerful hello as she walked in… “Good heavens,” she looked at the files and computers covering the table, “What’s all this then?”

“We were discussing his medical history and treatment with James,” Peter said as he started putting it all away.

Edna waved the menu, “We were having a bit of a treat and ordering something from this menu–would you like something?”

Jim tuned them out after smiling and saying hello to Sandy, while they talked about food–his phone had said he had a message: that was familiar.  He stared at it, the words… meant…

“James?”

“hmm? Oh. .. sorry.” He looked up at Edna’s worried look, “Trying to re-mem-ber.”

“The market says we are outside of their delivery range, James; that means–”

“Yes.” Jim nodded. “You have to… go get it.”

“Oh! Well, we… could?” Edna looked at Peter who glanced at Sandy.

Sandy just laughed, “Of COURSE I can watch James!  You two go pick up lunch and I’ll set up for speech therapy after lunch and James can keep working on his work pages…”

“James? Will you be okay if we go pick things up?” Peter looked at his watch, “it will be a bit.”

“I’m… ok.” Jim nodded.  He had thought they would have to go get it… they were… they were smart, but Sandy Speech Therapist wasn’t smart.

While they were getting things together to go, he stared at the message again.  If this meant what he thought it did… he carefully typed in a response and sent it.

After they left Sandy started preparing for lessons and Jim pretended to look at work books–soon enough he got a reply… Tiger could see the kitchen windows…

“Sandy… I can’t do my… work books outside… can I?” Jim carefully tried to sound worried, but not panicky–it was more difficult than it should be.

 “Outside?” Sandy looked puzzled but not startled, and definitely not alarmed– _she has no security sense at all._

Mister… Holmes… wanted me… to go… outside.” Jim let his lips pull down unhappily. “He says… it’s not... scary.”

Sandy looked all kinds of sympathetic, “oh, no honey… it’s not scary!  Not at all!”

Jim let her convince him to try it, and in short order Jim was sitting just outside the kitchen windows in the side yard with a small table, his phone and a few workbooks, and his blanket.

“See?  Isn’t this nice?” Sandy snugged the blanket around him and looked happily at the yard.

Jim nodded dubiously.  He didn’t have to fake the dubious look; it was a very boring landscaping job–probably because Mycroft wasn’t home much… before him.  _He used to almost live at his work–he even admitted that…_

“Do I need to stay with you?” Sandy hugged him and looked so eager to please, and Jim had a sudden clear image of one of the brunette women, this time in a lab coat, with the same expression.

“No, Molly…” _Molly? The one I liked… who was easy to fool and… a bit foolish?  Yes, her name must have been Molly._ Jim corrected himself, “Sandy… sorry…thank you… I… I will be okay.”

When Sandy went back inside to work on lesson plans he wrote down, ‘Molly’ in his notebook, and then said out loud, “Tiger?”

A red dot flashed once on his workbook. Jim sighed happily, “Hello… Tiger… I missed you.”

~

Sebastian had nearly jumped on the computer when he got an answer to his message…  the words in the reply were jumbled, but… get the laser microphone and target laser?  He always did call it the cat toy…

Sebastian set up the sniper scope with the laser target, and when he saw two people leave–they had to have been the two there overnight– he had the eeriest sense of deja-vu remembering a pool, but there was no pool at Mycroft’s house. Sebastian couldn’t picture Mycroft swimming unless they made a three-piece swimsuit.

Of course he never pictured Jim swimming, but he did–like a damn fish.  The shock of that still caused him to shake his head, even now…

So the other lady–just the one and she didn’t move like a combatant– was there, but the two who DID move like combatants both got in the car and drove off?  Was… was he supposed to  come get him now? No… he’d verified which windows he could see, and told him to get the gear…

Sebastian forced his breathing to steady, and waited–eye to the scope.

Jim was being brought out of the house! Outside?!  By the new lady who had come up…

“See?  Isn’t this nice?”  The lady  had that sort of relentlessly chipper tone Sebastian associated with  nurses.

Jim nodded dubiously.  He was tucked up in a blanket like an invalid with… Sebastian was puzzling through the scope at what looked like children’s workbooks.

“Do I need to stay with you?” She hugged him.

One of the workbooks was a copying exercise, the others were handwriting…?

“No, Molly… Sandy… sorry…thank you… I… I will be okay.”

Jim’s voice was slow, and faintly slurred, clear… but… he called her Molly and then Sandy? What, code for useful love struck idiot?

The lady left him alone, and Sebastian watched as he wrote ‘Molly’ in his notebook.  His handwriting was… well it was reminiscent of his usual handwriting, but… larger, more careful…

“Tiger?”

Sebastian forced himself to stay calm, and flashed the laser once on the workbook in front of Jim.

“Hello… Tiger… I missed you.” and there was an echo of Jim’s usual smirk.

 _Me too_.  Sebastian flashed the light and then held it– _waiting for orders._

Jim carefully pulled a paper out of one of the closed books and, after a quick glance around, turned it to orient right way up toward Sebastian.  Sebastian took a photo of it immediately and then looked: _recovery from stroke and head trauma, benchmarks for…_

_Head trauma? Stroke?_

He underlined the words with the light and flashed it quickly. _?!_

“Some…people were… pulled… off… my case.”  Jim spoke slowly and carefully as he turned pages and put his finger down on a word here, a word there… “They… hurt me–badly.”

He had touched words in his workbook like ‘water’ and the words ‘electric shock’ in the head trauma book.  Sebastian’s lips pulled back in a snarl. _I will murder every last one of them._

“Mycroft… was told to get rid… of me.  I was useless.  He brought me home.”

 _What?  That made no sense_ … he flashed “no” at the workbook.

Jim shook his head and leaned back in the chair, “Sandy Speech Therapist… bought me outside.”  He paused and then, “I got… Edna and Peter… Therapist… to go get food… so we can… talk.”

 _Damn it._ he had a million questions and this made no sense… Jim believed this– that much was obvious– but he could just as well have been damaged deliberately, or drugged and convinced…

He tried Morse–Jim had been able to read it at blinding speeds before– but Jim just started rubbing his eyes  and looking headachy, so he stopped.

Eventually Jim smiled and flipped a work book open to… the alphabet.  Sebastian sighed in relief and flashed the light slowly on each letter until Jim nodded.

“Retrieve you.” Sebastian spelled out.

“No.” Jim sounded exhausted, he leaned back and shut his eyes, rubbing at the side of his head, “I… they help…I still… don’t remember well.  Took me ages… to find the webpage…” and then he was curling into the blanket with one of his migraines.

Sebastian watched, helpless, as Jim pawed at his head and pulled the blanket over his eyes.  _Why wasn’t that damn woman watching him?!  but of course if she had been they couldn’t have talked…_ Sebastian counted his breaths and slowed his heartbeat again until the rage settled.

The man and woman–Edna and Peter… _therapist_?– came back with  take-out… from Jim’s favorite gourmet shop! and went inside.  They were clearly security people: one of them always had a hand free, and they walked in ways that covered each other without apparently thinking about it.

Not long after they went in they came out with… Sandy: Sebastian listened carefully.

“James?” the woman–Edna– sounded worried.

Jim mostly whined, which was unnerving.

Peter did a slow security sweep with his eyes, and seemed reassured that nothing was out of place.  Edna came over and got down next to Jim’s chair, “James, honey?”

“Hurts…” his voice was so quiet that the microphone pick up barely heard it.

“Come on, let’s get you inside.”

And they took him in while Sandy collected the books.

Sebastian sat back and put his gear out of sight mechanically.  Jim had said people were pulled off his case and hurt him, and that Mycroft was ordered to get rid of him but…

Every contact they’d had inside intelligence said Jim Moriarty had died under interrogation.  _If… If he had been HURT–damaged– but not killed? Yes… he would have been useless to them._   Sebastian started pacing slowly around the room.  _Why would Mycroft not kill him?_  The story was possible, but not very plausible.

He could almost hear Jim’s voice, “Truth is stranger than fiction, Sebastian, because fiction has to make sense.” He said it often enough…

_It didn’t make sense that Mycroft would actually be trying to help him recover… but…it wasn’t impossible?  Maybe... maybe he thought he could still get information out of him?_

Sebastian sent  Sandy’s license plate to be researched, and added the ‘probable first names’ of Edna and Peter, and that all three might be nursing or therapy staff.

He got a reply back after just a few hours: Sandy was Sandra Beates, a licensed Speech Therapist primarily working with stroke and brain trauma cases; Edna Symone and Peter Brinkley were private practice physical and rehabilitation therapists…

With a background in MI6.

But no matter how much Sebastian went over the information… all three were actually THERAPISTS, not… not interrogation or conditioning specialists.

Sebastian went out and tried to make sense of it–as well as getting some dinner and supplies– Jim was alive, and– if he believed this– recovering.

_I’ll just have to watch and see._

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its Thanksgiving, so of course i wrote about a dinner...  
> and a reminder that when you change perspectives you often go back in time a bit.

Mycroft came home to find dinner waiting– _carry out, from one of the better gourmet places?_ He was about to ask when James walked in from the kitchen, balancing on Peter a bit as Peter carried in a dish of roasted vegetables. “One of my favorite gourmet shops,” Mycroft then sniffed appreciatively at the vegetables, “but that is new?”

“I… made them.” James nodded firmly and looked pleased. “Peter… helped.”

“He means I hauled the heavier trays around and followed his directions,” Peter smiled at Mycroft and Edna nodded.

“I tried to help and was quite in the way.” Edna hugged James and then tried to escort Mycroft to his seat. “Although I was able to help with some simpler things.”

“Ah, no… please allow me to wash up before dinner, I shall be right back.” Mycroft walked into the kitchen: a bit out of order, but not bad.  He contemplated the receipt as he washed his hands–it had been rung incorrectly, which was odd for them, and the time stamp was before lunch.

“You ordered the vegetables and prepared them here?” he asked as he came out and sat down at the table.

“Yes.” James nodded. “They… don’t offer… this m-mix.”

“No, no they don’t… it all smells quite delightful.” He added with a very genuine smile, “Thank you James.”

All four of them sat down to an excellent dinner, James smiling a bit smugly at the praise.

“If I didn’t know better I would say James had been a chef.” Peter commented as Mycroft was enjoying roasted and seasoned vegetables.  “I learned a lot helping him.”

Edna nodded, “I had no idea  about the differences in the vinegars…”

“Balsamic,” Mycroft nodded, “as a glaze on the roasted vegetables, clearly.”

James looked down at his plate with a smile, “I made it… the… bottled reduction… isn’t right.”

“As I said I learned a lot.” Peter smiled, “like why professional chefs deserve a lot more money–I thought I was in shape but constant stirring is a bit exhausting!”

“That,” Mycroft said solemnly and winked at James, “is why you have sous chefs.”

James startled and then smiled, “Sous chefs do most… of the work.”

“Indeed.” Mycroft nodded, “But in this case… well the recipe was yours.”

“It certainly was.” Edna nodded.  We had everything for lunch plus a few items James wanted, and then we had to put it all in the fridge.  James took it all apart and put it back together for dinner–we had gotten a roast chicken…” she waved at the plate that had held slices of chicken in a jeweled sauce.

Mycroft stared, “James?  You made that from a roast chicken?” James nodded smugly. “I had thought the receipt was in error… my apologies.” Mycroft looked at Edna and Peter, “This main course– chicken medallions in gravy garnished with balsamic caviar?” they nodded, “It is one of their signature dishes.”

Peter paused as he had been gathering the plates. “James made the… little drops of balsamic when he was making the balsamic glaze for the vegetables.  The gravy and the chicken were from the store, although James fussed until we arranged the cut chicken properly…”

Mycroft marveled at him, “you MADE that?”

“You… had…you had it all.” James frowned, “Cold chicken plain…? No.”

“Yes, I have the ingredients to do it all…” Mycroft stood to help Peter take the dishes away.

“No.” James stood up with help. “No... dessert.”

“Yes?”

Edna smiled, “I think he wants it to be a surprise, although… to be honest we bought it from the shop ready made.”

“I saw the receipt, James: a very good choice.” James got a set expression and Mycroft put up his hands, “but very well.”

James took Peter into the kitchen.

Mycroft  looked over at Edna, “he made that?” He had no reason to doubt, but it was extraordinary...

“He got very frustrated about not having the eye hand dexterity to manage,” Edna said quietly, “but he definitely knew what he was doing.  He had a minor melt down about not remembering an ingredient for the… caviar you called it? So we spent some time looking it up online until we identified what he needed and how to do it and then he had us watch videos…”

“Of all the things I never expected…” Mycroft trailed off as he heard James voice from the kitchen sounding upset.  After a brief glance they both got up and walked to the door.

“Ok,” Peter was saying rather soothingly, “Thinner than that?”

“yes!  Like… like… capellini!”

“James you can’t make it that…” Peter made an inhaled gasp that almost had Mycroft run into the kitchen, followed by a weak, “Ok I guess you can?”

“See!”

Edna firmly pulled Mycroft back to his chair. “If it’s not bleeding, it’s not a problem.”

After an excruciating wait Peter and James came out with a tray and put down an exquisitely decorated plate of dessert in front of each of them.

They had purchased the cheesecake, but whole… not… “James, you were utterly wasted in international intrigue–you should have been a chef.”

James laughed.

Mycroft slid a fork through the layers of lemon zest–fine curls and loops that did indeed resemble thin pasta–and caviar of lemon and into the cheesecake.

“If you ever do decide to move out, James, I INSIST on frequent dinner invitations…”

~

The migraine had finally settled down when Jim came out of his room to find Edna and Peter working on… class outlines?

“James, are you feeling well?”

“Yes, Edna…” and then remembering why he had been outside, added, “Mister Holmes… Mycroft… said outside…he wanted me to go outside.”

“Yes, dear,” Edna smiled at him and Peter nodded, “did you get too much sun?”

“I was reading… and then…” he shrugged.

Peter waved at the computer–it was showing the zoo cameras–“if you get comfortable enough, Mister Holmes said you might like to go to the zoo…”

“I… could?”

“Of course you could,” Edna  started getting his chair ready, “You can go anywhere, dear; we just need to make sure you’re safe.”

 _I can? Seriously?_ Mycroft had said he wasn’t a prisoner, but… he stood thinking and trying to remember where there was to go… he’d had a place?  Images slid by, but they were different– _was that a hotel, or a place he owned?_

“James?” Peter was touching his shoulder.

“Trying to remember… I used… I used to live outside? But I don’t… I don’t remember.” He winced, “just little bits… and I don’t think…”

“You already remember more than you used to, James,” Peter was using his reassuring voice– _which should annoy me, I think, but it didn’t._

“What... happened to lunch?”

“We put everything in the fridge for dinner, dear.” Edna nodded, “And we thought we could either work on–”

“No!” Jim shook his head, “Cold? Cold chicken?  For dinner?  No!” he could do better than that… he didn’t have to eat cold leftovers ever again.

Edna and Peter looked rather startled, but Edna asked, “Alright; what would you like?”

“You make… dinner.” He was trying for words again, but they wouldn’t come out right.  He finally grabbed Peter’s hand and tugged him into the kitchen.

He got out all the ingredients… _no… no this wasn’t good cold_.  He started explaining and Edna and Peter looked at each other and finally Peter muttered, “well… life skills lesson…” and then he was… _this was familiar…_

He had the worst time trying to remember the words for things–they finally looked it all up– but eventually he had a dinner plan.  It was fancier than he would have made just for himself, or even for Tiger, but… Mycroft… he would be impressed… he would understand…

He had to have Peter do most of the work–and Edna, although she was better with the salad–which was frustrating, but his balance wasn’t good enough yet, and sometimes his hands still shook.

When he saw the look on Mycroft’s face when they brought it all in, when he smelled the vegetables… that was worth it.

…And then he joked about making the sous chefs do all the work… and _he winked at me? Mycroft Holmes was funny and warm and kind… why had he been so cold before… and he baked and liked to cook, and read The Saint… why had I called you Iceman?_   Jim puzzled over it and the words Antarctica, Love, and a few others drifted though his head but he would think about them later.

And then he took Peter back to plate the dessert–it was made already, it just needed to be plated– and Peter didn’t understand… and Jim just took the knife and slivered  the peel as thin as he could…

Peter’s eyes were wide and he stared at Jim’s hand’s carefully for blood.

But he helped garnish the cheesecake once Jim showed him how.

“This one isn’t pretty.” Jim said and put it aside just like he had the first plate of dinner.

“It’s very pretty,” Peter reassured him, but he didn’t press and they took plates of dessert out.

Mycroft’s eyes got so BIG when he saw it.

“James, you were utterly wasted in international intrigue–you should have been a chef.”

He took a forkful of the cheesecake with a reverent look and ate it so very slowly and kept closing his eyes.

“If you ever do decide to move out, James, I INSIST on frequent dinner invitations…”

“I’m… I don’t have to?”

“No, James, you don’t have to.”

“I used to… I know I lived outside before… but I don’t remember.”

Mycroft smiled sadly, “I never knew where you lived, only places you met people sometimes–and it didn’t look like you lived there.”

“I had a kitchen…” he hesitated, “Tiger… had a kitchen…”

“Yes, well… I need to speak to you about that, James… IF Tiger is the one trying to hurt me…” he looked like he was bracing himself a bit,  “do you know how to call them off?”

And Jim froze, torn between telling him that he already HAD… and not wanting him to find out... “Tiger… don’t hurt Tiger.”

“If… Tiger can be called off…” Mycroft said gently, “I won’t have to.”

Edna cleared her throat, “James?  Was… was Tiger just an employee? Or was he…” She tilted her head, “He?” she asked and Jim nodded reluctantly, “was he someone you knew well?”

Mycroft blinked in a startled fashion, “…Oh.”

“Tiger…was hurt.” Jim felt panic clawing at him and Peter and Edna moved the dishware away from him.

“You don’t need to talk about it, James,” Edna was saying and then Mycroft was there holding one of his hands.

“James… As long as Tiger doesn’t hurt me, or my people,” Mycroft hesitated, “anymore, then I will leave him alone–I won’t even look for him– but… if he hurts my people again…”

Jim held on to Mycroft, “Tiger… don’t look for Tiger, don’t…”

“I won’t, James, I promise.”

“…I can.”

Mycroft looked puzzled at him “Can what?”

“Tell… Tiger… to stop.”

Mycroft looked dizzy and sat back suddenly.  

Edna was holding a cup out to Jim to sip from and asking, “Honey… how could you tell an assassin to stop…?” and she was looking worried at Peter.

“Because I he has a phone and a computer…” Mycroft whispered. “But…” and then he looked worriedly back at Jim, “James… you’re safe because everyone thinks you are dead… if he finds out you’re alive…”

“He won’t hurt me.” Jim said firmly, “I will tell him to stop… I don’t know… if he did the… if he is why you were hurt? I don’t know.”

“If anyone knows you’re alive, James… that’s very dangerous…” Mycroft sounded worried.

“Just Tiger,” Jim patted at Mycroft, trying to be reassuring, “He won’t tell anyone.”

Mycroft was looking around at Peter and Edna and finally Peter cleared his throat, “I think… we’d really like to know if you’re talking to anyone who knew you before–”

Edna suddenly added, “Maybe this Tiger could help you remember?  Would that be safe?”

Mycroft made a strange choking noise. “You must be joking?”

Jim looked dubiously at Mycroft. “You’d hurt Tiger…”

“I’d…I’d hurt … him? I… think you have it the wrong way ‘round, James.”

“You promised,” Jim looked as stern as he could, “You promised.  You won’t even LOOK…”

Mycroft took several deep breaths, “I did promise, James: no I won’t even look, but PLEASE tell me before you contact anyone?”

Jim hesitated, “You won’t look?”

Mycroft shut his eyes and opened them–he looked like he had a headache. “I promise that I will not look for him. I do need to know if anyone ELSE is trying to kill me–or my people– but I won’t look for him.” he started rubbing at his forehead… that looked familiar.

Edna spoke up firmly, “We will have to discuss this before it goes any further–to try to be safe– but I think both of you are a bit overwrought, so … perhaps an early bedtime?” she looked at Mycroft, “And I think you need to take one of YOUR headache pills Mister Holmes.”

“At the very least…” he muttered.

Peter sighed, “I HAVE to get home tonight.”

Edna nodded, “I can stay if–”

Mycroft waved a hand, “You have both been over extending yourselves a great deal; please don’t.  I can work from home tomorrow and…” he looked  through closing eyes at James, “MY Tiger, Anthea, will have my hide, I’m sure, but I will need to talk to her too–she’s my guard after all.”

Jim wanted to argue with him, but the wrinkles between his eyebrows looked very bad. “Go to sleep… I can sleep in my room…” Jim looked at Edna and Peter, “You can help me clean up? You can take home some of the food?”  Mycroft started to argue and Jim looked at him, “What… would you tell me… if I looked… that bad?”

Mycroft stopped and then smiled wryly, “I’d tell you to take your headache pills and go lie down and we’d talk later.”

Edna stifled a laugh and Mycroft went off to lie down–he really looked unwell– and  Jim packed Edna and Peter up the leftovers. _Separate containers? They weren’t together?_   He asked…

“Oh, no dear,” Edna shook her head and patted his hand, “A lot of people think so, but no… we just work together.”

Peter helped him go to bed, and Jim made sure he was watching when Jim took his sleeping pill.  He’d never tried to spit it out before, so Peter wasn’t watching for it.

 _I did that in… the cold place? And other times… a lot of times… you just had to keep your mouth dry so the pill didn’t melt… you always got a bit though._ It didn’t matter with the sleeping pills–they didn’t work that well after all.

Jim dozed until they were gone, and then a while after that he waited… and then he messaged Tiger.

~

Sebastian had gone to bed after watching the house, and the comings and goings.  He woke up as soon as he got the email alert.

“Can you get past security to the neighbor’s house?”

“Yes.”  Did he finally want to be pulled out?

“Wait.”

Sebastian waited, wondering until he got another message with specific–if oddly phrased– directions.  He slipped out and past several layers of security.  Holmes’ security was excellent but it WAS a residential neighborhood so there was a limit to how far the perimeter could be really tight.

He got to the spot and… there was… a take-out box?  He couldn’t stop long so he scooped it up and walked away–just a normal resident out at night, maybe coming home from dinner out…

When he got back to the room he opened it…

Chicken… in gravy… with those little gelled spheres of something tasty that Jim loved to make and a slice of the shops cheesecake that had what MUST be Jims garnishing on it…

And a piece of paper with printed words on it:

“I don’t remember much, but I remembered you.  I miss you Tiger, be safe.”

And then Jim’s signature, but not his last name… and then down at the bottom of the page a clumsy handwriting with the codes for going dark and reporting back in a week.

_He remembered me…_

Sebastian ate every bite, remembering all the times Jim had ordered something like this, or cooked it.  And he packed up and cleaned every trace of anything but a writer out of the room, and made his farewells after breakfast.

“I have to do some follow up research out of London… but… it’s been lovely here; I hope to come back.”

They were delighted, and hoped he would… and Sebastian slipped away back to an empty home with a dusty kitchen…

“Right… this won’t do.” _Hell, if Jim saw the state I’d let the place get into…_

He set about putting the kitchen to rights first, and then actually cleaning up…

And if he tucked the note into the back of the Kandinsky, well who would know.

 


	19. an interlude with cocoa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a quiet morning into afternoon with cocoa (And unfortunately a migraine)
> 
> posting this early for Mickie. My husband is recovering from surgery and still unable to beta, so please forgive any spelling or punctuation errors.

Working from home was simple enough to arrange–Elizabeth was actually relieved, since it gave them more time to worry about security.  Mycroft came down to find James already up and… _breakfast?_

“You made this by yourself?”

“Yes.” James looked unhappy and frowned at the plates, “It’s messy.”

“It’s fine.” Mycroft looked at the plates that could scarcely be described as messy… unless… “I expect you are as much of a perfectionist as I am.”

James shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Well, thank you James.” 

As they were washing up the plates afterwards Mycroft found himself commenting, “Sherlock never had any interest in cooking.”

“No?”

“No. He often poked at me for my interest in it–especially baking.”

“He’s not…that’s stupid, baking is…chemistry.  Doesn’t he like that?”

Mycroft smiled, “Yes, he was majoring in chemistry before he dropped out–and still is quite interested. More from the forensic side these days.”

“You… like chemistry?”

“Only the baking part.” Mycroft sighed, “No, I was always interested in how things worked on a larger scale–politics and economics.”

James was very quiet until he got settled in Mycroft’s office with his workbooks.

“I… had money?”

“Rather a lot of it, I would expect–I found one account of yours, as I said, and had it put in trust for you under your new name.” Mycroft looked at him thoughtfully, “That alone would at least… take care of your basic needs for life.”

“You… spent… your money… on this.” He waved at himself, “on me.”

“Yes.” Mycroft saw the worried look and added, “I don’t spend much, usually, and I dabble in investments, so it was quite alright.” He muttered, “Elizabeth spends far more on her roses and the less said about Anders’ show dogs the better.”

“Show dogs?”

“Ah, Lord Anders spends quite a great deal of time and money on his Cocker Spaniels–he took a best in breed several times running.”

James looked puzzled and the next time Mycroft could take a break he pulled up some of Lord Anders’ webpages, “These.”

“OH!” James blinked several times, “His… brother…was shot?”

Mycroft certainly hadn’t expected that, “Yes, Lord Anders’ brother was shot and killed while he was off doing some sort of plant hunting expedition in South America.”

James looked headachy and finally said quietly, “did…I do that?”

Mycroft felt his headache return almost instantly–and it brought friends… friends with spiked clubs. “I have no idea… why would you… I thought it was simply a drug gang that objected to him in their territory.”

“Orchids...” James said dreamily, “He was hunting orchids…he spent too much money and Lord Anders asked me to fix it…”

 _Oh no, Anders? Anders hired Moriarty…_ Mycroft’s political analysis starting clicking at full speed and he cleared his throat, “Lord Anders is part of a security committee I am on… that would be… an issue.”

James blinked several times and his eyes slid to the side like they did when his… _wait, reassess… when James really went blank his eyes simply defocused, or he got a migraine, or he closed them… when his eyes slid to the side and stared at nothing in mid conversation…_

“James, are you trying to change the subject?”

“What?” he looked guilty.

Mycroft shut down the laptop, “James… I will ask you not to lie to me.”

Very quietly, “I don’t lie to you–I told you about the camera…”

“I suspect strongly, James, that you have been lying by omission…”

James hunched further down, “If you get angry will you send me away?”

 _He’s afraid I will… Oh, yes a lifetime of habit…_ “I will not send you away, James… and I won’t hurt you.” Mycroft considered a headache pill, considered rebound headaches, decided against it. “Come on, let’s go sit someplace more comfortable and… we can have some cocoa.”

Mycroft began to make cocoa, while James sat and fidgeted. _If a topic was uncomfortable for him and he only had to put on a blank look and stare off to the side to make people stop?  Or to have people speak in front of him?  Of course he was smart enough to do that… and he’d said he knew they wanted to kill him in the hospital… he’d HEARD that–understood that– the entire time, even if he didn’t have the words to communicate._

James offered to take over stirring the hot chocolate: Mycroft accepted gratefully since the lights in the kitchen were far too bright.

 _He was very clear on not lying to me_ , Mycroft considered as he got them both settled in the living room, _so obviously there have been many things he didn’t understand… and he says he gets pieces and they keep sliding away…_

Once they were on the couch Mycroft began, “James, I would far prefer you were honest with me… there are problems that I can solve if I know about them, but…”

“You… might get angry.”

“I might,” Mycroft nodded, “But… I promise that if you tell me the truth, I will not throw you out, and I will not hurt you–even if I get angry.”

James looked highly dubious. “You… hurt me… before…”

Mycroft winced, “Yes, yes I did.  I also permitted you to be hurt–although you were never supposed to be damaged… like you were.”

“You helped me.” James said quietly, “after…”

“Yes, and… I do enjoy your company.”

“People… were angry before and threw me out.” James muttered.

“I’m afraid I know less of your past than you do, James.” Mycroft sighed and closed his eyes.

After a short while he felt James move up close to him and lean into his shoulder. “I wish you didn’t hurt.”

Mycroft slid an arm around him, keeping his eyes closed, “I wish YOU didn’t hurt, too.”

“I already told Tiger to stop.”

Mycroft blinked his eyes open, and regretted it instantly, “Oh?  Erm… Could you turn the lights off, James?”

James got up and the lights on the other side of his eyelids dimmed. “Thank you.”

“Mi-graines suck.”

Mycroft chuckled, “Yes, yes they do.”

“You aren’t mad about Tiger?”

“I’m… more upset that I didn’t realize.”

“Oh.”  And then after a long pause, “I really don’t know if he hurt you–tried to hurt you.”

“When did you remember how to contact him?”

“First I remembered him… a little.  Your Tiger sounded like him…” James mimicked a flat tone and said, “He’s a threat.”

“She said that, yes, and then you… looked up and said Tiger…” Mycroft sighed, “and became very upset.”

“I remembered him a little, and then… then I remembered I didn’t know why he wasn’t here.” James made a sobbing hiccup and Mycroft wrapped his arm around him a bit more, “or why he should be…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “but he should be…”

“Do you remember him more now?  I don’t need to know, if it… bothers you.”

“I … remember more, but… did I hurt him? He was hurt… I don’t remember… but if I hurt him… would… would he… be Tiger? I don’t know.”

“I consider it unlikely that you hurt a trained killer and yet you are certain he won’t hurt you or turn you in, or tell anyone.”

“He could have.  He could shoot me… but he wanted to rescue me.” and then James flinched under his arm.

Pieces clicked into place– _God I had been an idiot_. “I keep forgetting that no matter how injured you are, you…” Mycroft sighed, “He was HERE? How do you know?”

“I sent him the address from the delivery.” James admitted quietly, almost into Mycroft’s side. “Are- Are you angry?”

“Right now? Worried… and very tired.”  Mycroft tried to smile and patted him gently without opening his eyes.

James moved and Mycroft found a cup of cocoa pressed into his hand. “Thank you James.  How do you know he could have shot you?”

“Red dot… when I went outside.” James took a shaky breath, “he said he could see the kitchen.  I went outside.”

“When you had… oh I see, when you had Edna and Peter go pick up food–that was very clever.”

“It was?”

“Yes.”

“It’s hard, I can’t think of the words.  Sometimes it’s hard to talk at all.”

“So is he going to shoot me, then?”

“Noooo…” James voice was confused, “I told him not to.”

“I would expect you would want him to.”

“Why?”

“Because I hurt you… because even if I didn’t want you to be hurt so badly this… it’s my responsibility.”

“You took care of me. You got Edna and Peter Therapist and Sandy… even if she is kind of stupid.”

“Is she?”

“She… is good… for her job?  But not… not smart: Edna and Peter are smart.”

Mycroft felt amusement and admiration for James’ cleverness despite his headache, “So you had to get them out of the way so you could convince Sandy that it was her idea to talk you into going outside… that’s really brilliant James.”

James settled happily against him.

“So is Tiger still here? Around here?”

“No.  I told him to hide again.”

“Why?”

“I was… you might hurt him.”

“I won’t hurt him as long as he doesn’t do anything else to hurt me, or my people.”

“I don’t think he believed me.” James said, and Mycroft could hear him sip his cocoa; hear the faint clatter as he put it back down. “But… if he… if I hurt him… he could shoot me, so… maybe I didn’t hurt him?”

“Why would you think you hurt him?”

“I remember him hurt.”

“That doesn’t mean YOU did it.”

“Then why was I there?”

“I don’t know.  Perhaps Edna is right, perhaps we should ask him.”

“He’ll come back in a… not day… week?”

“Perhaps enough time for me to be rid of the headache.” Mycroft said dubiously, although he doubted it.

They sat quietly on the sofa until they both finished their cocoa. James curled into Mycroft’s side and Mycroft’s arm around him.

~

Anthea gathered the day’s paperwork–some things being far too secure to be transmitted in any fashion other than secure courier– and left Lucy in charge of the office for the day. _She was coming along fast, really, once her self-defense training was a bit further along I might be able to take a few vacation days_.

Anthea wasn’t cleared for everything Mycroft Homes was–no one was, really–but she could see that the loss of so many people in the bombing had thrown Britain’s highest levels into disarray. _Mycroft and I were lucky to be alive_. She considered the cost if they had been among the casualties and shuddered.

As always she arrived at the house JUST when she was in the middle of something, but eventually she was done. She let herself into the house… _silence? Mycroft must be in his office then…but the lights were off…_ she had her hand on her knife as she slipped quietly into the darkened living room…

Moriarty looked up from the sofa where he was… _curled up against Mycroft? With a blanket?_ There were two coffee mugs on the table in front of them.

He glared at her and put a finger to his lips…

Anthea watched Mycroft’s breathing–steady and his lips were a normal color– as Moriarty slowly disentangled himself and got off the sofa.  He picked up both mugs carefully…She watched him walk into the kitchen with her adrenaline slowly settling down as she followed him: his balance was better, but still poor enough that he wasn’t a threat, especially with both hands full; _Mycroft didn’t seem injured…_

“Mycroft… had a bad… mi-graine.” Moriarty said quietly as he put the mugs in the sink and put his hand on the sink edge to steady himself–he was a bit too close to the knives for her liking, but it wasn’t her call.

“He gets those.” Anthea nodded slowly. She watched him carefully wash both cups, “You made tea?”

“No, cocoa.” He paused, not looking at her, “Mycroft made… I helped stir.”

She couldn’t help but smile faintly, “His cocoa takes a lot of stirring.” _He’d made cocoa–a very bad stress day then._

“How… did he get you?” Moriarty asked suddenly.

“What?”

“You… how did… Mister Holmes… get you?” Moriarty looked over at her with a closed and wary look, “He… you won’t hurt him.”  It was said as a statement.

“No, I wouldn’t hurt him… I might occasionally want to throttle him, or tie him up in the boot of his car and drag him home from the office, but–”

Moriarty started laughing in an odd fashion and then … it trailed into almost sobs.  She didn’t quite know what to do so she tried to guide him to a seat–away from the knives. “Are you alright?”

“Tiger.” He looked very dubious at her.

“Is a person. Mycroft told me.”

“You can’t hunt him.” He glared at her again, and it was really quite astonishing the amount of menace that could be packed into a small frame.

She held up her hand, “Unless Mister Holmes is injured, or tells me otherwise, he isn’t my problem.”

“You remind me of him.” He muttered.

A small smile crossed her face, “I’m not an assassin–anymore.”

He just nodded, his eyes tracking to the door, and around the room in a jerky fashion.

She considered: he was apparently, and for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, important to Mycroft, and… he seemed to be concerned. “Mycroft used to do field work you know.”

“What?” he looked at her and then slightly beyond her.

“He used to go out sometimes on missions.”

Moriarty frowned, “That’s not good. He’s… important.”

“It was, in fact, a spectacularly bad idea–it was supposed to be a ‘safe assignment’,” she snorted at the memory. “That’s how we met: we were both injured, and… I gained a great deal of respect for his abilities,” she smirked, “even if I don’t think he should be a field agent.”

Mycroft Holmes’ tired voice came from the doorway, “It was a disaster, and Anthea saved my life–junior agent though she was.”

Anthea sighed, “Fire me; I didn’t even hear you come up.”

“It’s my house, my dear; I would think I know how to move in it.” His voice was that dulled exhausted tone he had after a bad migraine.

“Do you… want more cocoa?” Moriarty asked him and… he really did look concerned.

“I suspect we could all do with actual lunch.” Mycroft… smiled and… put his arm around Moriarty.

She shook her head, “I will never, in all my life, understand this.”

“Understanding the behavior of human beings–a race I must unfortunately include myself in–“ Mycroft intoned, and Moriarty snickered, “is a Sisyphean task… in other words, don’t even bother to try.”

“As you may know, Sir, the impossible requires two days’ notice,” she returned with a smile. “I’ll set up for a briefing… unless you need help in the kitchen?”

“James and I can manage.”

As she left she heard them arguing over what to make for lunch; Moriarty’s voice hesitant but clear, Mycroft speaking more slowly but otherwise typically… they sounded… like they were enjoying themselves.

“Should have gotten him an invalid adrenaline mad doctor, but nooo… he has to get an international criminal who cooks,” she muttered as she set up for work. “Figures he’d have to one-up his brother.”

 


End file.
